NEWFANE — Nancy Smith’s vision of the Apple Barrel at Gordie Harper’s Sports Bar has been ruined.
Her overhaul of the large commercial space at 3333 Lockport-Olcott Road, to transform it from a bar/restaurant and retail cooperative to a gaming/recreation space, was nearly complete when fire destroyed the building over the weekend.
Smith said she and her boyfriend, Timothy E. Williams Jr., an electrical engineer, had been working on the renovations almost every night for the past three months. Saturday was a rare night away for them, she said.
The fire that took out what Smith called “an icon of Newfane” started around 11 p.m. Saturday. Within 15 minutes, she said, the back half of the building was already gone and the windows in the front were blown out due to the wind.
Crews from the Miller Hose, Wrights Corners and South Wilson fire companies battled the blaze for about four hours, and when the fire was finally out, Smith said, the bathroom walls were one of the few parts of the building still standing.
“The freezer is gone, the walk-in cooler is gone,” Smith said. “We were ready to open. That got taken away from us Saturday night.”
Paul Preste and his wife Eve Dolansky, an Appleton native, purchased Gordie Harper’s Bazaar from Gordie Harper in 2023, and the business was operated as NU Gordie Harper’s for less than a year. In 2024, “Mom’s Place” restaurant was launched and then closed in less than a week.
Smith, who has worked in the restaurant/hospitality industry most of her life, said Preste reached out to her through a third party last summer to discuss launching another hospitality venture on the property.
Smith said she didn’t want to manage another restaurant or a “gin mill.” She imagined the Apple Barrel as a community game center, with big-screen TVs for watching Bills, Sabres and Bandits games, pool tables, a bowling game and shuffleboard in the front half and, down the line, line dancing and parties in the back half.
“I wanted something different for our community. I thought Newfane needed it,” she said. “I can tell you, from the bottom of my heart, it aches that it’s not gonna happen. It’s sort of like somebody dying.”
Williams and Smith did all of the building renovations themselves, with help from their friends Joe Nugent and Lisa Chetney, who was going to be a bartender at the Apple Barrel. “It took all four of us to do what we did,” Smith said. “This just took the wind out of all our sails.”
Also lost in the fire were Williams’ tools, thousands of dollars worth, Smith said, although his John Deere tractor, which he used for snow clearing, was saved by a pair of Miller Hose volunteers.
Williams, a fire inspector, state fire instructor and a 35-year member of the Wrights Corners fire company, posted a video Sunday on Facebook showing the effort to keep the fire away from his tractor, with a message that reads, in part:
“I would like to thank all my brother and sister firefighters for their determination to contain the fire. … seeing all the firefighters doing everything they possibly could made me very proud of (their) efforts. In this video you will see my tractor parked right next to the building. Randy Czelusta and Jen Killion thank you from the bottom of my heart for protecting that expensive tractor till we could get the key to unlock it and get it moved.”
Smith said she and Williams have been told that the fire likely started somewhere near the bar, an area where no renovation had occurred other than the removal of a couple of walls.
Addressing speculation about the cause, she said, “I want our community to know: this fire was not set. It was an old building. … (The cause) is going undetermined because there’s nothing left.”
Smith said she and Williams did a walk-through of the property on Sunday and found nothing salvageable.
“We’re not sleeping a lot,” she said. “I close my eyes and all I can see is it burning down. It’s the same for Tim.”
Smith added that she feels bad for Preste and Dolansky, who are residing in Florida. “They’re very good people. They treated me and Tim well,” she said. “They have to absorb that their building is gone. They’re devastated.”