Once a church, a brewery and a bakery, the small brick building off the corner of A and Main streets in downtown Moscow is just a bar from the outside. But step inside the cinder block walls of the Corner Club and it doesn’t take long to realize it isn’t an ordinary bar. The Club opened its doors July 23, 1948, as a workingman’s bar by Gene “Hermie” Goetz and Neal Lind, and one patron has been there from the start. Moscow native Norman McGough got off work on the U.S. 95 Highway project north of Moscow and stopped for a birthday beer at the Club the first day it opened. McGough turned 21 that day and has not stopped going.
“Well, (we) were just coming off and had a beer,” McGough said.
McGough and high school friend Ray Warniky have gone to the Club nearly every day since McGough retired in 1989. The two have a cup of black coffee, read The Spokesman-Review and watch “The Price is Right.”
The highway McGough helped build would eventually run through the original building the bar used. The original establishment was larger, had hardwood floors and barren walls. Before the building was torn down, the current building was built onto the back and is still in use today.
Verbal histories account a man riding a buffalo through the original building, a different man riding his horse into the bar and a beer-chugging sheep.
“That happened during Hermie’s time,” said Marc Trivelpiece, current co-owner. “You know there are stories of a guy riding in here and ordering a beer for himself and his horse. The horse story is true, but I don’t know about the buffalo, you know how oral histories are.”
Dave “Hondo” Goetz, Hermie’s son, managed the bar from 1971-91. Hondo returned from school at the College of Southern Idaho to help his dad manage the bar when his co-owner Neal Lind passed away at an early age.
Hondo said the horse in the bar was before his time, but he remembered the beer-chugging sheep in the ’70s.
“(Students) were always doing research on animals and (Tom Dowd) would get the bum lambs,” said Mike Curtis, Corner Club owner from 1991-2007. “He’d bet any of the guys down at the Club his sheep could chug a beer faster than them. He’d put a nipple on one of those bottles and the sheep would never lose.”
Curtis and Trivelpiece said they never had animals in the bar, but still have their fair share of fun experiences with different characters.
“A Beta came in last (fall) wearing a vest that was two sizes too small, a pink bike helmet and yellow jogging shorts that were too small,” Trivelpiece said. “He walked in and realized none of his buddies were here. He spent 15 minutes trying to call his buddies.”
Curtis said one of his most memorable moments was the national attention the bar received in Sports Illustrated in 2005.
“The neatest thing was Sports Illustrated … Top 25 bars in the States,” Curtis said. “… they called us and said ‘you guys just made the cut.’ Called next week and asked for stories. Finally the last week they called and said ‘you’re in’ … they sent us a magazine without address labels so it was pristine.”
Trivelpiece said one of his most memorable moments at the Club was fall 2009 when University of Idaho football coach Robb Akey led the Vandal fight song on the bar after the Homecoming win in front of a packed house.
The Club has a tradition of cutting the jukebox when a bar patron steps on the bar, table or stool, claps and leads the bar in the Idaho fight song.
“I don’t know, it’s been going on since I was going to school here. Joel Thomas used to lead it a lot when he was here,” Trivelpiece said.
Thomas played for the Vandals from 1993-98, was a 2008 inductee to the Vandal Athletic Hall of Fame and is the all-time leading rusher in Idaho football history.
Thomas is not the only Hall of Fame inductee to contribute to the history of the Club. Former Vandal basketball player Gus Johnson added his mark at the original Corner Club in the ’60s.
“I’m not exactly sure how the challenge came up, but someone challenged Gus to touch a beam that was 11 feet off the ground,” Trivelpiece said. “He stood flat-footed and touched up about 11 foot 6.”
Trivelpiece said Hermie drove a nail in the beam and said anyone who could touch the nail would be able to drink for free.
“Bill Walton even came down to try,” Trivelpiece said. “He didn’t even attempt when he saw the height. Dennis Johnson, Gus’s little brother, was the only other person to ever touch it.”
Not only have Vandal Hall of Fame athletes contributed colorful stories throughout the years, many of their photos are on the wall or under the plexiglass tabletops. The Club is adorned ceiling to floor with Vandal memorabilia, from photos that are decades old to the shots of 2010 NFL first-round draft pick and former Vandal Mike Iupati. Near the front entrance, a collage from the 2009 Roady’s Humanitarian Bowl championship Vandal football team is under the table, and in the back is a newspaper clipping collage from the 1981 NCAA Sweet Sixteen Vandal basketball team hangs above the shuffleboard table, and
While the Club is known for displaying Vandal artifacts, its signature is the tub. A 32-ounce oversized plastic cup full of beer that is a popular purchase made by many of the patrons.
“I think tubs are a great idea,” said Eric Valiquette, a UI student. “It’s (the Club) is probably the only place that has tubs and knows what they are, at least besides the other bars in Moscow.”
Trivelpiece has his own history with the Club, and has worked there off and on since he was in school at UI in the late ’90s. It had always been a dream of his to own the Corner Club. He also said the Club is where he met current co-owner and wife, Stacey Trivelpiece. Stacey Trivelpiece was a student when Trivelpiece was a bar tender.
“That’s how I convinced my wife to own a bar,” Trivelpiece said. “She likes it.”
Stacey Trivelpiece agreed with her husband and said it is “awesome.”
“Telling people you own the Club is better than telling them you’re pregnant,” Stacey Trivelpiece said, laughing.
She said owning a business is stressful, but since her business is the Club it makes the stress worth it.
The Corner Club has transformed from a workingman’s bar to a mixed crowd, Trivelpiece said.
He said the local crowd usually shuffles out around nine and students start trickling in by about 11 p.m.
“It is the Vandal bar in Moscow,” Valiquette said. “If we’re going to go out to the bars, we’re going to go to the Corner Club … just because the tables have photos of students and pictures of students doing their sports. When you go there, you know who everyone is.”