Snug Harbor serves up attitude, whiskey, PBR

The staff at Snug Harbor: Kelly Connolly (25 years), Jack Parrish (21 years), Hick Renadette (aka Cap’n Hickory Barbarosa), Ariana Basco, Matt “Starski” Coleman, Ed Daley, James Dillon, Matt Gibbons, Emily Jean Lubicich, Melissa Pelino, Larry Shafer, Christopher Anthony Stubelek-Swiderski and James Warren. Not pictured: Ben Gildersleeve, Ariel Kellman, Andrew Mironchik and Luke Roberti. (photo by Lauren Thomas)

Snug Harbor Bar and Grill occupies one side of a building with a long history in New Paltz. Snug’s side of the building — 38 Main Street — is intrinsically linked with the other.

Part of that has to do with the history of how postal addresses came to be in New Paltz, where prior to the 1940s nothing had a street number.

Early legacy

Shortly after it was constructed in 1873, for Charles “Chas” W. Deyo, the building that holds New Paltz’s most beloved dive bar held both a drugstore and a clothing store. Almost a decade after the Civil War, Deyo had the building built. It had two storefronts and some space upstairs.

According to a New Paltz Times story from March 1873, people were taken by the appearance of the building. The reporter noted that it “gives Main Street quite a citified appearance.”

Because of the lack of addresses early on in the building — and the multiplicity of uses that changed through the years — it’s somewhat hard to say which side of the building held which store. To muddy the waters a little more, the upstairs was occasionally rented as a store, an office or apartment space.

Only a year after opening, the clothing store had shut down. Eventually, the building housed a drug store and grocery store combo — a use that would be lasting.

An 1879 advertisement for New Paltz Drug Store mentions the sale of patent medicine, medicinal wine and liquor and window glass.

By 1889, the grocer had become Freer’s Bazar — a general store of sorts that sold dry goods, cloaks, jackets, jerseys, corsets, ribbons and stationary.

By 1927, the brand names might have changed, but the general idea stayed the same — the building was again the home of a drugstore and a grocery. At that time, the grocery was called “Atlantic & Pacific Grocery.”

World War II era and beyond

It might surprise some people to learn that A&P once had a grocery store location in New Paltz. But from 1942 until 1948, it was housed in the same building that now holds Snug’s — seemingly on the 36 Main side.

While Starbucks, McDonald’s and Burger King might be New Paltz’s most visible chains now, according to an article from 1948, A&P was the first chain store to come to New Paltz.

Eventually, A&P left that small space and the independently owned Downtown Market — a grocery and meat market — opened up in 1953.

A New Paltz Independent article from 1954 states that the New Paltz Tire Center next to Downtown Market was closing to make room for a gift shop. In 1955, the gift shop had folded and the 38 Main side of the building became Hartmaier’s Restaurant.

That restaurant eventually morphed into the present day Snug’s — but not before a lot of turnover.

In 1962, Hartmaier’s was sold to Robert Eisenhardt. It was renamed the Village Restaurant. By 1965, the Village Restaurant got a new owner — a Charles Marrow, according to the Independent.