Thirty feet from Indiana, Kubiak’s Tavern at 80 isn’t that far from the feel of its Depression-era, 1933 origins, with original lights and seating, a phone booth, a coat-check room, a country jukebox and a 50-year-old bumper pool table.

“It’s like going back in time,” said Ellen Kubiak, whose tavern can accommodate 300.

“We have the largest dance floor around and we fill it on weekends,” when they have a deejay and karaoke.

She and her late husband, William, bought the bar from her in-laws, Leo and Mary.

“My husband ran it,” she said Tuesday. “I sold real estate for 35 years and managed 40 rentals. This was his main job and he was a hands-on person. He died 11 years ago in March.”

Butch’s portrait hangs over the cash register.

His beer can collection lines a doorway.

“I’m told this part was a nursery school before it was a bar, believe it or not,” she said from her perch on a bar stool.

Oldtimers might remember when free movies showed on the side of the building, like a drive-in theater.

“They’d sell popcorn or people would bring their own and that whole parking lot one day a week would be full in the summertime,” Ellen said.

“I’ve never been a smoker,” so she welcomed Michigan smoking restrictions which cleared the “haze” hanging over the bandstand. “It’s so much easier to breathe. When I turned the big fan on to suck out the smoke, it sucked out all the heat, too, but it made me cough. It’s so nice now that they have to go outside to smoke.”

DJ Jeff Roberts, who also performs and promotes entertainers, has been with Kubiak’s five years. He said Thursday night’s crowd tends to be older, with more of a mix of ages Friday and Saturday.

“I do a lot of Roy Orbison stuff,” said Roberts, who has opened for Ronnie Milsap.

“We don’t have a lot of 21-year-olds,” Ellen said. “We’re conservative and low on drama. For years this was a Polish bar. In the ’70s, when the drinking age was 18, Notre Dame would send Greyhound buses. They’d come here and to Shula’s, which is Joey’s (Armadillo) now. We’d have them lined up 200 deep outside, waiting to get in. At 300, we had to lock the doors. I’d have to call over if they started crawling in the windows in back. St. Mary’s girls rode their bikes and chained them to the cyclone fence. My husband, who was real strict, collected fake IDs. My husband was a sharp businessman and liked running his own business. He worked here seven days a week. I’ve had surgeons from South Bend come in to reminisce. One guy still comes who’s from New Jersey. He brought his wife and she looked around with her nose up in the air and said, ‘What’s so special?’ Most of my customers live close by, more from Indiana than Michigan.”

Running a tavern “wasn’t my forte,” Ellen said, “but you do what you’ve got to do in life. I already had my name on the license and didn’t want to let it die. I did it when my husband went up north hunting or fishing.”

Kubiak’s, which closes the week of July 4 so she can enjoy her cabin at Donnell Lake near Vandalia, employs four bartenders, a “door guy” to check IDs, a waiter and a waitress.

Food service consists of pizza.

Ellen, who lives near the tavern, has one daughter, Diane Janowiak, vice president, central laboratory operations, for South Bend Medical Foundation, and two grandsons, 15 and 11.

 

Kubiak’s Tavern, 319 Stateline Road, Niles, presents Elvis Presley and Tom Jones tribute artist Irv Cass on Sunday, March 24. Doors open at 3 p.m. for the show at 4. Cost: $12 in advance, $15 at the door. Contact Jeff Roberts at (269) 240-5480 for more information. April 28 a Blues Brothers act Roberts is playing with in Chicago this weekend performs. Dyngus Day April 1 is big at the traditional Polish tavern. A Neil Diamond impersonator is being booked for late June.