“A time-traveling horse walks into a bar,” works as a great joke setup, but it was the real deal outside the Bay Horse Cafe in downtown Cincinnati Thursday morning. The historic bar is getting ready to open back up under new ownership, and it just served its first customer: Wilden the Cleveland Bay.
Wilden’s entrance into the bar mirrors the past — apropos considering the bar’s new co-owner, who we’ll just call Smith, is bringing a time-travel concept to the bar. Just so you get the full scope, we’ll have to travel back in time a moment:
The year was 1878. Back then, Cincinnati was considered the wettest city between New York City and Chicago and there were 20 bars along Fifth Street between Sycamore and Main streets. Fifth Street was also home to horse sellers. One day around October of 1878, a bay horse — a horse with a reddish brown coat and a black mane — broke free of its reins, broke the fence and wandered into a bar across the street (probably for a stiff drink, Bay Horse Cafe co-owner Fred Berger joked).
While the original name of this bar is lost to history, this incident inspired its new name: The Bay Horse Cafe. The bar moved to its current location on Main Street in 1962 and closed in 2004. Berger and his fiancée, Lori Meeker, purchased the property in 2017 and renovated it and reopened it that same year. Unfortunately, the bar once again closed in 2022 after Meeker passed away. Smith is now in the saddle when it comes to the bar, but he wants his work to be a reflection of Meeker’s legacy.
“I’m blessed with this wonderful offer to carry on Lori Meeker’s legacy. … I don’t want to take credit for it in any way, shape or form. All I’ve done is grab the steering wheel and say, ‘Let me see if I can drive this thing,’” Smith said. “I just have a really good team, and I have a lot of friends in the bar industry who have guided my hand along the way and helped me achieve this goal.”
Smith, a self-proclaimed sci-fi nerd who loves all things time travel, is tacking that theme onto the bar’s name, calling it the Bay Horse Cafe Time Travel Bar. The menu features drinks named after time-traveling machines like The Delorian (vodka, sauvignon blanc, lemon juice and toasted almond bitters) and The Tardis (London dry gin, blue curaçao, St. Germaine, lime juice and a dash of orange bitters.) There are also nods to sci-fi writers like H.G. Wells, fictional time travelers like Rick Sanchez from Rick and Morty and movies like Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure and 12 Monkeys.
Smith says his goal is to be open for the Reds’ upcoming season, but Berger had one request before he opened. In 2017, Berger and Meeker renovated the bar and took off the bar’s 6-foot-by-8-foot door and replaced it with two 11-foot-by-3-foot swinging doors — which would have been the perfect entry for a bay horse 145 years ago.
“He said, ‘It would be my dream if that horse came back for a drink,'” said Smith.
Smith contacted stables throughout the Cincinnati area and found Wilden, who can be seen in the Loveland Fourth of July Parade every year. With a little luck and good timing (or maybe the result of some time traveling?), Wilden’s owner agreed to bring him down for the special occasion Thursday. Smith also worked with the Cincinnati Health Department, which offered to put off issuing the bar’s food permit until the next day so Wilden could be the first official customer under the new ownership.
You can follow all the bar’s time-traveling adventures on its Facebook, Instagram and Threads pages.
The Bay Horse Cafe Time Travel Bar, 625 Main St., Downtown.
This article appears in Mar 20 – Apr 2, 2024.