Photos: Inside The Cowboy-Era Danville Dive Bar that Time Forgot
DANVILLE, CALIFORNIA – After the Gold Rush, the East Bay really was the Wild West. Cowboys and ranchers ruled the hills, and most other folks worked in agriculture.
Not much has survived, culturally speaking, from those rugged times. Today, you’re more likely to see denizens of the 925 driving a Porsche Cayenne and sipping a $14 acai smoothie than riding up them thar hills on horseback.
One thing that has survived, though, is a handful of dive bars. These have changed very little in over a century. And they’re still serving locals today, just as they did in cowboy times.
There’s Roundup Saloon in Lafayette, which for a time in the 1940s encouraged you to drink with your horse.
And down in Danville, there’s Elliott’s.
Tucked along Hartz Avenue, Elliott’s is the rare Danville holdout that never tried to become a wine lounge. It stayed exactly what it is: a true neighborhood saloon.
A bar that predates modern Danville
Elliott’s story goes back more than a century. It was established by Hiram Elliott in 1907, originally at Diablo Road and Front Street, before moving to its current Hartz Avenue location in 1912.
Then came Prohibition. Instead of operating in the shadows, the business famously reinvented itself as the Danville Ice Cream Parlor, a detail that still shows up in local historic walking tour materials today.
Thankfully, Prohibition didn’t stick. And so Elliott’s turned back into a bar post haste.
Inside, it looks very much like it probably did in the early 20th century, except with more TVs and neon signs.
Every surface is covered in something–often related to local teams.
Part of Elliott’s charm is that it never chases trends. A San Francisco Chronicle feature from 2000 described a room full of regulars lined up at a battered bar.
Go there 26 years later, and that’s still a pretty fair description of Elliott’s.
longtime bartender Dale Stockbridge bought the bar in 1995, after tending bar there for years, and wanted to keep the “core essence” intact. He later passed away. And bar lived on.
Elliott’s is not trying to impress you. It is trying to be your bar.
The beer is cold. The prices are cheap. No one is going to use the word “mixology.”
In short, it’s a perfect dive bar. I took these photos at 11:30 in the morning, and there were plenty of patrons already hanging out inside.
If you want to drink like a cowboy–even if you’d be terrified to approach an actual cow–Elliott’s is there for you.
Find it at 369 Hartz Ave, Danville.
