Iconic Tri-Cities hot spot shut by the pandemic to be new riverside restaurant
A popular winery is bringing new life to a beloved Tri-Cities bar that closed early in the COVID-19 pandemic.
The fate of Richland’s R.F. McDougall’s has been up in the air for more than a year. Its owners told the Herald last year that they hoped to reopen, but that never happened.
Recently the property was bought by J. Bookwalter Winery.
Winery President John Bookwalter knows first hand the rich history the bar holds.
“R.F. McDougall’s was always ‘The Bar’ in the Tri-Cities,” he said. “Whenever I was home from college, that’s where my friends and I would meet. My grandfather, good Irishman that he was, would go there for St. Paddy’s Day.”
The new restaurant will take the name of the full service bar in their Fiction restaurant: Fable Craft Bar and Kitchen.
“The location is fantastic, right on the river,” he said. “It will give us the opportunity to do some new things with Fable, as well as re-invent Fiction, our full-service restaurant at the winery.”
“Fable offers the finest liquor selection in Eastern Washington,” Bookwalter said. “We’ll have that in our new location, as well as a full-service kitchen. This new space will enable us to showcase everything we’ve envisioned for Fable as a standalone restaurant and bar.”
Combining histories
R.F. McDougall’s opened in 1979 and was built around a historic wooden bar dating to the 1860s.
The bar was originally built in New Jersey and traveled around Cape Horn to a saloon in Fairbanks, Alaska, during the Alaskan Gold Rush. It made it back to Washington state in the mid-1970s, according to a news release from the winery.
The new Fable Craft Bar and Kitchen is part of the Bookwalter’s recent expansion.
J. Bookwalter opened a 20,000-square-foot winery in late 2021 that includes expanded production and storage, a new tasting room, indoor and outdoor event areas and its company offices.
The new facility gave the company the ability to expand Fiction and its restaurant in the space that once housed production and barrel storage.
That will allow the Fiction restaurant team to expand its focus on a seasonal menu and farm-to-table offerings linked to the region’s agricultural heritage.
“Our goal for Fiction is simple — to become the first James Beard-nominated restaurant in the area,” Bookwalter said. “There’s never been one in the Tri-Cities, and we believe Fiction will be the first.”
Fable is expected to open later this summer, and will be the fourth member of the J. Bookwalter dining portfolio. The others are Fiction, Fable Craft Bar @ Fiction, and their food truck Non-Fiction.
Sunset magazine named the Bookwalter tasting room in Richland one of the best tasting rooms in the U.S.
R.F. McDougall’s was co-owned by Kimo von Oelhoffen, a Pittsburgh Steelers defensive tackle.
He also co-owns Kimo’s Sportsbar and Brewpub, which recently returned to its original name, Rattlesnake Mountain Brewing Company Restaurant & Brewpub.
The Richland restaurant and bar at 2696 N. Columbia Center Blvd. near Bateman Island was run as Rattlesnake Mountain Brewing Co. for many years before being revamped and renamed Kimo’s in 2005
This story was originally published April 14, 2022 at 5:00 AM.
