WASHTUCNA Sonny’s Tavern and Grill is back. The long-established gathering place in Washtucna, which has struggled to keep going in recent years, reopened Oct. 26.
“It's been closed more than it's been open in the last about six years,” said Bridget Coon, who owns and operates Sonny’s with her husband Paul. “The previous owners had it in 2016 and by 2018, they had some kind of a fire around the water heater and it caused a lot of smoke damage. So it was closed (in) 2018, 2019 to basically gut and remodel it. They reopened in 2020, which was a hard time. I recall their first weekend open was the weekend that indoor dining was shut down (for the COVID-19 pandemic).”
The owners were able to keep Sonny’s going for a while with takeout, Coon said, but then moved away from the area, leaving the establishment to sit on the market until the Coons took ownership in August.