Ron Harvey has walked through the doors of the Palmer Bar and Grill every day for decades. He doesn’t drink alcohol. He was back again for the bar’s 90th birthday in July. He was sipping his root beer.
Bar co-owner Sherman leifer says that loyalty defines the place. A lot of old timers come in. They say that the bar that was the first place they had a drink.
Palmer’s two oldest institutions are a church and a bar.
Presbyterian minister Bert Bingle arrived in town in May 1935. This was four days ahead of the first colonists. Bingle joked he was relieved the Lord kept pace with the lawyers and barkeeps. This is according to local historians Margaret Miller and Ray Bonnell.
By Leifer’s account, the bar started in 1936. Neal and Marie Wright opened it across the street from the depot. Locals called that spot “the wrong side of the tracks.”
The joke around town was that the Colony sold the milk, and the bar sold the booze.
Ninety years later, both the church and the bar are still serving.
Old photographs and decades of State Fair posters cover the walls of the Palmer Bar and Grill. It’s like a scrapbook of the 90 years that started with Bingle and the Wrights.
This scrapbook is now in the hands of Leifer and his cousin Wes Artz. They bought the bar on July 11, 2020. The partners treat the day they signed the lease as the bar’s birthday. July 11 this year marked the bar’s 90th birthday. It’s the oldest continuous business in Palmer.
Researcher Doug Vandegraft helped Leifer pieced together the ownership history of the bar. Leifer admits the records are less than perfect. One ad in an old business directory has the founding year of the bar off by about a decade.
The bar has moved several times. It spent time in the basement of Bert’s Drug Store as the Palmer Cocktail Bar. It moved into the old Piggly Wiggly grocery store next to Bert’s Liquor Store.
The bar also changed hands several times. Five owners ran it between 1965 and 1985. Mary Lou Coddington and Jack Burnett bought it in 1985. They ran the bar for 35 years before deciding to sell.
Leifer was interested in the bar because he wanted to own a piece of history. Leifer said, “What cooler place was there than the Palmer Bar?”
Coddington and Burnett had several offers for the bar. They chose the Leifer and Artz. That trust has stuck with Leifer.
What he did not imagine was the responsibility that came with owning a piece of history. Leifer was stunned. He never dreamed of being on a community board.
He has served as president of the Greater Palmer Chamber of Commerce board. He now sits on the State Fair board. This is fitting since the fair also turns 90 this year.
The bar did that. Leifer says, “When you belong to something like this, you inherit a vested interest.”
Leifer manages the books and handyman projects for the business while Artz manages the bar and grill. Leifer credits Artz and the staff for the bar’s growth. He says that they work to make it a gathering place first, and a bar second.
Leifer likes to hear that the Palmer Bar has some of the best service and food in town.
The bar was named Palmer Business of the Year in 2023. It won Battle of the Beverages at Colony Days and Colony Christmas in 2024 and 2025. They did not enter in 2026.
Leifer’s goal is for the bar to feel the same when it turns 100 years old as it does now.
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Emily Forstner reported this Page Two article and yours truly, Lee Henrikson produced it. If you have an idea for a Page 2 topic, please email us at page2@radiofreepalmer.org.
That’s it for today and the news on Page Two on Tuesday, August 4, 2026.
Photo credit: Downtown Palmer 1940-1950 Palmer Museum of History & Arl–Wimmer Collection