State’s most unusual watering hole, Desert Bar, set to reopen

With plenty of customers and no competition, Ken Coughlin has little need to expand his bar in the middle of nowhere, though that never stops him.

Each weekend from October through April, hundreds of cars and trucks rattle along 5 miles of a dusty beaten path to Desert Bar, Arizona’s most out-of-theway drinking establishment. The bar near Parker in western Arizona reopens for the season on Saturday, Sept. 30.

Those who can’t find seats inside the Nellie E Saloon or at the tables crowding the multi-level decks are happy to walk one of the trails leading to the scenic ridges surrounding the bar.

Yet through this summer’s blistering heat, Coughlin continued work on a patio extension, a five-man job he tackled himself.

It’s more a need than anything else, a pattern of continual work that goes back 35 years to when he opened the bar. In the early 1980s it was little more than a shed with five stools and a cooler full of

beer.

The bar is just 10 miles outside Parker but seems a world away, set amid a parched landscape of scrub brush and dust. Coughlin bought the land sight unseen in 1975, and the desert foothills embrace the bar as if designed to do so. It’s difficult to think of a better site for such an outpost.

Coughlin has spent most of the past 35 summers working on his dream, taking it from the original site (customers today having no idea the importance of that abandoned shed) to what it is now, a sprawling, multilevel bar complete with solar power and kitchens.

It’s almost a desert version of the Winchester Mystery House in San Jose, Calif., owned by a woman convinced she would die if construction stopped.

As Coughlin expanded the bar summer after summer, he built a house as well. He realized it was his only option as he spent more and more time on his passion/obsession.

The Desert Bar has since become an annual destination for many patrons. It could be the only watering hole where you need to visit just once a year to be considered a regular. They arrive from as close as Lake Havasu to as far away as Canada, all for the opportunity to have a beer and a burger in the semi-wilderness.

As Coughlin continues to expand and refine his Desert Bar, he has just one regret.

“I can’t do as much as I’d like to anymore,” he said. “Not like when I was much younger.”

Bar and grill nestled in the foothills of the Buckskin Mountains near Parker in western Arizona. Mixed drinks, canned beer, burgers, hot dogs, chicken and barbecue sandwiches. Cash only.

Noon-6 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays, Sept. 30-April 29.

From Parker, take State Route 95 north about 5 miles to Cienega Springs Road. Turn right and go 5 miles to the Desert Bar. Cienega Springs is unpaved and not regularly maintained. Carefully driven sedans can make it. You may be more comfortable in a highclearance vehicle.

928-667-2871, thedesertbar.com.