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Will "Bar Rescue" take away Royal Oaks quirkiness?
By GUY D’ASTOLFO
YOUNGSTOWN
This week’s visit by “Bar Rescue” to The Royal Oaks prompted a lot of speculation about whether the hip East Side tavern would retain its quirky decor and spirit.
But one thing that has been left out of the conversation – and that can never be erased – is the long history of the Oaks, which is inextricably linked to the DeMain family of the East Side.
Tony DeMain, 76, of Cornersburg is the last surviving familial link to the original owners: the six DeMain brothers – Henry, Joe, Ralph, John, Albert and Anthony – who owned and operated the Oaks.
Tony wants to remind everyone about what kind of a place The Royal Oaks was during the more than 50 years that his uncles owned it, and why it occupies a firm place in the memory of many Youngstowners.
“My great uncle bought the building in 1913,” he said. “They made it what it was, after the Prohibition, and into the 1940s and ’50s.”
The Royal Oaks has been in continuous operation since 1934.
The bar was purchased by brothers John and Lou Kennedy in October 2001 from George Skrbina, who bought it from Bobby DeMain, son of Anthony.
The Kennedys have since turned the place into a lively mecca in a neighborhood long past its prime.
Tony DeMain, who grew up on the East Side, fondly recalls delivering The Vindicator as a youth, and stopping in his uncles’ bar every afternoon.
“People in there would say, ‘Hey, Tony, give me a paper,’” he said. “They would be five or six deep at the bar.”
Under his uncles, The Royal Oaks was a family affair that also was kid-friendly. The six brothers were there every day, said DeMain, who noted that the bar was well-known for its hot dogs, as well as a place where workers cashed their paychecks and city politicians would meet.
“It was one of the most-popular places in Youngstown, and everybody knew the DeMain brothers who ran it,” he said. “When people started moving away from the neighborhood to Canfield and Boardman, they would still come back to go to The Royal Oaks.”
DeMain said he thinks it’s great that “Bar Rescue” is doing an episode on the Oaks. “It’s got people talking about it,” he said.
Although DeMain hasn’t been in the bar for a couple of years, he is eager to visit it to see what changes were made by “Bar Rescue.”
“It hadn’t changed much before,” he said. “It’s a whole new generation in there now, but they kept the old style.”
Co-owner Lou Kennedy has said bar patrons often share memories when they visit.
“So many people will come in here and say, ‘I remember coming here, and Daddy would sit at the bar and all of Daddy’s friends would keep sending up pink ladies and chili dogs,’” said Lou in the book “Classic Restaurants of Youngstown” by Thomas G. Welsh Jr. and Gordon F. Morgan Jr. “Kids loved coming here, and everybody has a memory of that.”
The Royal Oaks also has some darkness in its history.
In March 1972, co-owner Ralph DeMain, then 61, was shot and killed in the bar by a bandit while two of his brothers and four patrons were forced to lie on the floor.