Paying homage to the bars of North Lake Tahoe lore

The connective tissue between the bars that made up the narrative during North Lake Tahoe’s après-ski heyday and today is remarkable. 

Given the remaining watering holes and gathering spots that can trace their lineage back to those halcyon days, whether it’s the employees who work there, the customers who still belly up to the bars or the buildings that house them, opportunities remain for Tahoe revelers to find both a familiar space and face—if they know exactly where to look. 

Tahoe’s Italian Staple

There’s no better place to start this search for what was—and still is—than the bar at Lanza’s Restaurant in Kings Beach.

Lanza’s, which turned 50 in 2024, is one of the last red sauce Italian joints in the Tahoe Basin and occupies the rarified perch of being a multigenerational go-to spot for locals, visiting families and the occasional accidental tourist. 

Lanza’s celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2024, photo by Clayton Humphries

Lured in by the traditional whitewashed roadhouse facade, they cozy up in the comfy booths, eating comfort food among the pleasantly comfortable chaos of boisterous conversations and kids running between tables. All the while, servers carry out heaping-hot plates of Italian American standards to folks famished from their day on the hill or at the beach.  

But it’s the bar at Lanza’s, a space awash in stained woods and red upholstery, that features the kind of perfect atmosphere —regulars huddled in the corner and bartenders willing to strike up a conversation—that really jumps people into something of a time warp. 

And when offered a drink from one of its seasoned bartenders, that’s when it hits home: This cramped space in an ancient building might actually be the sun in North Lake Tahoe’s bar universe.

Longtime Tahoe barkeep Tray DeGuire has helmed the bar here for 22 of his 25 years living in the Tahoe Basin. An increasingly rare creature, DeGuire has seen jobs and haunts come and go. He is, for example, an alum of the legendary Captain Jon’s, a lakefront joint in nearby Tahoe Vista that had no business being as culinarily sound as it was thanks to the creative cooking of the late Geno Duggan, who opened Captain Jon’s in 1977 and died this past spring. 

Lanza’s bartender Tray DeGuire hard at work, photo by Ryan Salm

DeGuire is the first to admit that Lanza’s is both a coveted and steady gig, one where he runs into generations of Tahoe families and serves guests from ages 9 to 99. 

Case in point, in the middle of his shift during a surprisingly lively weekday, a young boy who can barely see over the bar hits up DeGuire with a declaration and request of his own: “It’s my dad’s birthday,” he says. “Can I have a tiramisu?” 

Without skipping a beat, DeGuire leans over: “Are you going to have a bite?” he asks. 

Taken aback slightly by the most obvious of questions, the boy leans in a little more and shouts: “Yeah!” 

“Well, we got you,” DeGuire says with a smile and shakes the boy’s hand. A tiramisu with a lit candle is quickly spirited from the kitchen to the family’s table.

DeGuire admits it’s those million small moments that keep the staff happy. 

“Very low turnover,” he says of the Lanza’s team. “It’s a combination of my boss—Justin [Garcia, the third-generation owner] is by far the best boss I’ve ever had in my entire life—and on top of that, I’d also say it’s the regulars. Not only do they keep it afloat, but they’re the best. They’re friends outside of work.”

Time and again, patrons prove this by declaring their allegiance to DeGuire and Lanza’s. But it also may be by default. There’s not a whole lot of action in the area otherwise. And the bar seems to have been there for them, through both long, snowy winters and short, dry ones, pandemics and recessions, population booms and quiet years of solitude. 

By all indications, the bar at Lanza’s is a little more tight-knit—or at least a locals-centric entity—than the restaurant on the other side of the foyer and hostess stand. 

“One hundred percent, [the bar] is a separate entity from the restaurant,” DeGuire says. “We have our own regulars that come here. Most of the time they come here for a cocktail and stay awhile.” 

Gone But Not Forgotten

“Awhile,” of course, can mean years or even decades. And speaking of long spans of time, the conversation at Lanza’s turns inevitably to some of North Lake Tahoe’s dearly departed bars.

There was the aforementioned Captain Jon’s. There was Naughty Dawg in Tahoe City, known for its ginormous tiki-inspired Dawg Bowl drinks served in plastic dog bowls. There’s Jake’s on the Lake (which is temporarily closed pending the outcome of a planned development at the Boatworks Mall in Tahoe City). And then there were some of the true late-twentieth-century go-tos, now long gone but with memories so vivid the sting of shots still course through the veins of all who were there to witness.

There were Friday and Saturday nights at the Pierce St. Annex, the bar tucked into the back of the Boatworks Mall, which featured several stages, a giant Space Invaders-inspired character made out of tile on the dance floor, and lascivious acts that hearken back to Hot Dog-inspired outlandish hijinks that simply wouldn’t (nor shouldn’t) fly today: “The club also hosted many events, including Jell-O wrestling, wet T-shirt contests and parties,” the Sierra Sun reported on the eve of the bar’s closure in 2006. “It is a large space that holds three pool tables, a juke box, video game machines, a foosball table, a dance floor, stage and two bars.”

“The scene at Pierce St. (was) my favorite, because of the good party,” says DeGuire, acknowledging that moment has indeed passed for him personally and for the Tahoe bar scene writ large. “I was in my 20s; it was perfect for me. They’d have strippers from Reno. I miss it.”

Across the way was Humpty’s, another Tahoe venue that DeGuire says somehow managed to get both A-list bands and local favorites to perform—from surprise guests like alt-country act Mojo Nixon to college town cult favorites that almost made it, but not quite, like The Mother Hips, The Beer Gardeners and Tahoe’s fabled heavy metal act, Fortress. 

“I was too young to go in to drink when it was still open,” DeGuire says of Humpty’s, which shut down in the late 1990s. “But, I was old enough to get in there and see a couple shows. That was one of the best venues in the entire world. I know a couple bartenders from just being in Tahoe; a bunch of Humpty’s bartenders have fanned out all through Truckee and Tahoe.”

His go-to today is Pete ’n Peters, which, while turning 50 this year, is holding it down as Tahoe City’s last true dive: “It’s got to be my all-time favorite,” DeGuire says.  

Back at Lanza’s, the crowd starts to pick up on the subject of long-loved and lost bars, and names start flying around—various servers and bartenders who passed through the most hallowed of institutions, some no longer in the Tahoe Basin, some no longer with us at all. 

One mention is the Hacienda restaurants. Both Hacienda Del Lago in the Boatworks Mall, which closed in 2021, and Hacienda de la Sierra in Incline Village, which closed in 2018, were owned at one point by the Lanza family. 

It was at the Hacienda in Incline where one could score a hot combo plate of two tacos, rice and beans along with a “Sneaky Bandito,” a 44-ounce margarita served in a chalice cup, dubbed on the menu as “44 ounces of fun.” 

Ill-advised Sneaky Bandito drink-offs sometimes broke out during holiday weekends, and the Hacienda would often crescendo into Incline’s “pregame” spot before revelers headed across the street to Rookies, another Pierce St.-type venue that featured DJs along with 24-hour food and drink service. In March 2022, Rookies announced it was sold, and the spot “Where everyone plays” shut its doors for good in the spring of 2025.

Le Chamois, aka “The Chammy,” at Palisades Tahoe, photo by Keoki Flagg, courtesy Palisades Tahoe

Carrying the Torch

But all is not lost for the drinking scene on Tahoe’s North Shore. 

In Tahoe City, the Bridgetender, a riverfront staple that will celebrate its 50^th anniversary next spring, is still pleasantly packed, especially with the newly refurbished Fanny Bridge hopping. 

There’s also CB’s Bistro in Carnelian Bay, which, even with a recent ownership change, has remained a favorite deep-cut hangout for pizza, beer and appetizers since its opening in 1986. Nearby, Gar Woods Grill & Pier has been a cozy if not bustling destination since 1988. The lakefront staple that still features a “Wet Woody” on the menu manages to draw in massive crowds of locals and generational visitors, especially in the summer months. The same could not be said about Gar Wood’s sister restaurant, Caliente in Kings Beach, which closed its doors for good last spring. 

And there couldn’t be a “you had to be there” bar roundup without mention of Le Chamois in the Village at Palisades. Though the bar still exists today, the rowdy neon-onesie era of legendary twentieth and early twenty-first century Tahoe skiers and raconteurs—from Jonny Moseley to Shane McConkey to Kent Kreitler to the Gaffney brothers and multiple generations of Mancusos—is recalled with a kind of reverence reserved for the world’s great manmade monuments. If there was one place on the North Shore to rub shoulders with some of the best in the sport (ever) and feel like you were one of them (almost), “The Chammy” was it. 

“No other bar in the country contains such a wide fraternity of world-class athletes, aromatic louts, fledgling howlers and fearless matadors,” the late Tahoe scribe Robert Frohlich wrote in the Reno Gazette-Journal in April 2007. “These people are so cool they could heal warts.”

Incline Village Classics

After about a year of renovations, Alibi Ale Works, the Incline-based microbrewery, opened its first taproom in the Hacienda building in July 2019. The move was a massive step up from their first location in a building that housed a former NAPA Auto Parts store next to a boat storage facility in the heart of Incline’s commercial district. 

Today, the Alibi in Incline, even during a quiet weekday lull, still hums with patrons. The restaurant and bar’s general manager, Rachel Specter, says the spot remains steady because of locals along with a good infusion of travelers and frequent visitors to Incline who have made Alibi their go-to.

Alibi’s Incline Public House, once home to the Hacienda, is one of the go-to hangouts in town, courtesy photo

Does that mean the Hacienda is forgotten? Absolutely not, Specter says. 

“Oh, for sure, people come in and [mention] the Hacienda all the time,” she says. “One of my best girlfriends, she was a server here before it closed. People seemed to like it. They had a reputation. People said it could be a little dive bar at the time.”

As the volume turns up once everyone’s had a couple of drinks, and a band takes to a small alcove inside, and the back patio starts to overflow, Alibi can be reminiscent of the old Hacienda as the evenings grow long. 

“People really love to hang out,” Specter says, noting the bar turns out to be “somewhat chaotic,” in a good way, when things really get going. “It’s a family-local hangout. If you have someone visiting, you can take them here and hang out and have some beers. Kids run around outside. I call it a third space for the community. It’s very much that.”

A third space is perhaps still a far cry from describing Incline’s craziest nights of yore. Those could be had at the old Bar Bar Bar across from the post office (now Glasses Wine Bar), or Billy’s, which later became The Local in the strip mall across from the Raley’s shopping center. Both are also no more. 

But then again, there are still a pair of Incline holdouts that represent the most dive-est, most drinking-est, most must-visit throwback hangouts remaining today in the Tahoe Basin: the Village Pub, established in 1984, and The Paddle Wheel Saloon, which claims status as Incline’s oldest bar, founded in 1980. 

Specter says she prefers the company at one over the other. “For me, it’s The Pub,” she says. “I know the bartenders and stuff there. I love a dive bar that’s simple and also has games. I like the vibe.”

But for certain locals and curious visitors, a place like The Paddle Wheel Saloon does the trick. On a weekday February evening, The Paddle Wheel (which many visitors refer to as “the wheel” or more commonly as “that dark bar across from the Hyatt”) is pleasantly filled with locals enjoying a few cocktails and either keeping to themselves or huddling in small groups of three or four.

It’s inviting, and yet there are visible cliques here. People have come to either commiserate, complain or celebrate—sometimes all three within the span of 10 minutes. 

Presiding over it is legendary Paddle Wheel bartender Mary Morgan, who keeps an eye on her regulars while welcoming in visitors with a coaster and a smile. She pours drinks stiff and fast, has a good ear for a story and is a scary-good multitasker, refilling someone’s drink without pause while finishing the punchline of a joke. And, in the end, like every expert bartender, she lets her comments kind of hang out there, free for interpretation.

“If they’re a local,” she says of her customers, “they definitely know about The Paddle Wheel. We’ve been around for 40 years-plus, so we’re locals and some—perhaps not all—visitors.”

What she means is The Paddle Wheel might not be for everyone, but for those who find themselves there and it clicks, the mix of regulars with overflow traffic from the nearby Hyatt, which Morgan says is likely either “a seasonal convention or a family holiday,” can make for noteworthy times.

“We can get a whole horde of firefighters,” she says, smiling. “Or,” she adds, pausing to shake her head, “a whole horde of salesmen.” 

With The Paddle Wheel’s location, mere footsteps from the mega McMansions of Lakeshore Boulevard, does the historic bar ever serve any celebrity or billionaire guests? Morgan laughs: “Oh, we never see that echelon. Tell everybody we’re sad about that.”

As for which Tahoe bar Morgan misses most? That’s easy, she says: the Lone Eagle Grille. 

The old steakhouse that occupied the lakefront parcel of the Hyatt property included a lively bar scene on weekends, complete with live music and a good mix of local revelers. It closed in early 2025, and the building, known for its two-story floor-to-ceiling windows with lake views, has been completely razed. 

There, Morgan says, she would see some of the wealthiest residents and visitors mix with the town’s hoi polloi to create an unexpectedly convivial atmosphere, one she thinks might be hard to replicate with whatever is in the early stages of being built there now. 

Morgan says she hopes whatever surfaces remains accessible to “regular folks.” 

“We’ve become a little snotty here,” she says of Tahoe’s reputation. With that, one of her regulars calls out: “Speak for yourself!” And she smiles.

Andrew Pridgen still misses the Bar Bar Bar pizza slice special that came with 7(ish) free beers.