The first two drinks were poured out at the Otter River Pub in Templeton, Massachusetts, on Wednesday afternoon, after a devastating fire shut the historic watering hole down in September.
You’d never know what the Otter River Pub — locally known as “The Onion" — has gone through by walking into it now. The bar is completely renovated, with modern touches in its touch screen juke box, but plenty of pieces of the past keep it grounded in its history. Just take the flagpole on display inside, originally installed atop the building in the 1800s.
The building itself, which is on Main Street near the Baldwinville section of town, has gone through many chapters in its history dating back to the late nineteenth century. It’s been a general store, library, post office, auction hall, a furniture store, and starting in the 1960s, a bar. It’s well-known by locals, and popular among pool players.
Thanks to a lot of community support and hard work, the pub’s history will live on, as it reopens four months since last fall's devastating fire.
Otter River Pub, post-recovery
Owner Matt Piaseczny says it seems more like four years since the fire.
“We basically lost the whole building,” Piaseczny said, as delivery workers brought in cases of beer behind him. “At that point we weren't quite sure what was going to happen.”
The fire broke out during a songwriting contest at around 9:30 on the night of Sept. 27.
“Just like you'd imagine in a in a storybook; we started smelling the smell of smoke,” Piaseczny said. “We thought it was just some of the new equipment in the kitchen. Kind of dismissed it. But all of a sudden we started seeing smoke.”
NBC10 Boston covered the fire when it happened, which produced towering flames above the bar. The fire spread to different sections of the building, including the second floor ballroom and roof. With all the water damage, the bar itself was ruined, too.
On top of it all, the fire happened just about a week after a relaunch of Otter River. Piaseczny, who bought the place in December of 2022, had closed it down last summer for some improvements as the Templeton local worked to reinvigorate a legendary spot that even he had gone to starting 15 years ago.
He noticed the community support as he began to revitalize the business last year, and it was that support that carried the bar through its recovery effort.
"People that worked here in the 80s, people that came in here in the 70s, people that were on the [pool] teams in the 60s started coming back in telling us all about the good times they had,” Piaseczny said. “It's really beyond words. You can't you can't express what that what that means.”
Otter River Pub September fire
Groups who had been scheduled to play at Otter River held their concerts at different venues after the fire and made them into fundraising events. Family connections in the construction business helped with the rebuilding. Piaseczny and his team did a lot of the work themselves, too.
In the end, the bar is completely redone, featuring a newly-exposed brick wall that’s been hidden for over a century, new décor, pool tables and a tangible resiliency that’ll surely keep it alive for years’ more memories.
It reopened Wednesday to some regulars and pool teams, with a full launch to the public set for Feb. 5.
“I actually did something in my own town and that was buying this place, because if I didn't, I don't think anybody would have,” Piaseczny said. “Never did I ever think that we'd go on this ride to see this kind of support.”
