LYCOMING COUNTY, Pa. — The Tivoli Tavern sits on Route 220 in Shrewsbury Township, right outside of Picture Rocks in Lycoming County. The spot used to be the Temperance Hotel, which was built in the early 1800s.
"It was actually three stories when it opened, but a fire actually destroyed the third floor and so they took the third floor off and put a roof on it," said co-owner Cole Kitchen.
The Temperance Hotel became the Tivoli Tavern 100 years ago and has kept the same name ever since.
Cole Kitchen and Matt Eyer co-own the restaurant. They bought the place last summer, made some renovations, and opened for business earlier this year.
"We were going to change the name to the Tivoli Sports Tavern, when we first purchased it, and put it on Facebook that we might change that, and when you've got a business that's been around for 100 years, people don't like change like that, and we just kind of figured to ourselves we'll just keep it exactly the same," Kitchen said.
A train station sat behind the Temperance Hotel. People would get off the train and go to the Highland Manor up the road from the hotel. During this time, this area was called "Dog Town."
"They weren't allowed to have dogs up there, so there were kennels in Tivoli, and that's why it got the name Dog Town," Kitchen said.
The owners say that since opening, they've learned a lot about the historic property from their customers.
"I did have a guy stop in the other day, and he had all kinds of information, and he actually has a book or something that he wants to share and bring down, so I'm excited to see that. Before we opened, we stopped over at the Lycoming Historical Society and got a lot of information from them, saw some old pictures of the way it used to look here," Eyer said.
The owners of the Tivoli Tavern hope to continue improving the property. They say the next step will be adding an outdoor space to the restaurant.