You Can Still Get a Drink at Michigan's Oldest Bar

Sumnerville — The Old Tavern Inn has been serving customers in Michigan longer than Michigan has even existed.

This bar and restaurant sits in the very southwest corner of the state, in a tiny town called Sumnerville. The restaurant was first founded back in 1835—two whole years before Michigan officially became the 26th state on Jan. 26, 1837—and it's widely recognized as the oldest bar and business in Michigan.

More specifically, The Old Tavern Inn is the oldest business in the state still operating from the same location where it started, on its original foundations.

Inside looks like your classic small-town dive bar. Wood-paneled walls, old beer posters, and an old bar lined with regulars. I was the only person under 50 years old by a mile, there was only one waitress working the entire place. Just about everyone seemed to know each other.

It's the type of place you walk into and immediately know the food is going to hit the spot, but you're going to need a nap afterward.

And a 22-year-old girl walking in there alone on a Tuesday morning with a Canon Rebel T7 camera hanging around her neck is obviously going to stick out like a sore thumb. Just about everyone asked what I was doing there, and when I explained that I was writing a story about the oldest business in Michigan, I was surprised to learn that only about half of them even knew just how old the place was.

Luckily, almost all of the tavern's 191-year history has been very well documented, and you can read the whole story in a book they have on display inside the restaurant.

It traces the business all the way back to its earliest days, with old photos, renovation records, stagecoach routes, and firsthand accounts from people who walked through those doors going all the way back to the 1830s.

And the stories are fascinating. The original owner apparently made his own whiskey, and one old account describes a hearse crashing into the tavern property and sending the body, coffin and all, into the barbecue pit.

If you're into local history, you could probably spend half the day reading through the thing. And by the time I left, that's basically what was happening. The book was making its way from table to table as people read through years and years of history that had happened right under their feet.

When the bar first opened, it was called the Sumnerville Tavern and was just a one-room log building along an old stagecoach route that connected Niles and Kalamazoo. It was the first building ever constructed in Sumnerville and the town basically grew around it.

For more than 20 years, the stagecoach route brought a steady stream of travelers through the tiny community. Back when getting from one town to another meant hours in a horse-drawn coach, places like the Sumnerville Tavern gave people a place to stop along the way.

Since then, it's managed to survive several recessions, changing ownerships, the Great Depression and even prohibition, which they got through by operating as a grocery store until the ban was lifted in 1933 and they could start serving alcohol again.

The building also looks a whole lot different today than it did back then. It's been remodeled, expanded, and transformed plenty of times over the years, and at one point, they even turned the entire building 90 degrees.

Around the 1920s, someone had the bright idea to install gas pumps out front, and the only problem was that vehicles kept struggling to make the 90-degree turn near the building and crashing into them.

So they did a complete overhaul and turned the entire tavern 90 degrees to face south instead of west.

But even then, parts of that original one-room log tavern were preserved within the building, and they're still there today. Hidden inside the walls and underneath the floorboards are pieces of the original structure from nearly 200 years ago.

By the mid-1970s, the former Sumnerville Tavern had officially become known as the Old Tavern Inn. Then in 1976, the Historical Society of Michigan designated it as the oldest business in its original building in the state.

Ownership of the tavern has also changed hands plenty of times since 1835—18 times to be exact—and now it's owned by Kelli and Jason Vance. Their menu consists of all the best comfort food, and the two things they're especially known for are the goulash and their famous hot ham sandwich, which is what I went with, and it was pretty delicious.

Several people there told me it's the best ham sandwich in Michigan, and while I can't quite confirm that for a fact, I can confirm it has to be the biggest. I genuinely couldn't believe how much ham they managed to fit between two pieces of bread.

And it's being served out of a building that's been doing this longer than any other business in Michigan.

So if you want to grab a drink in a bar that's older than the state itself, you know where to go.

But there's no need to rush. After 18 different owners, Prohibition, and nearly 200 years in business, the Old Tavern Inn doesn't look like it's going anywhere anytime soon.