VDOT: Warren County Traffic Advisory for May 13-17, 2024

After keeping an eye on the restoration of the historic Mullen-Trout House at 12 Chester Street and its New Year’s opening as The Chester Street Tavern, we spoke with tavern owner and retired U.S. Army veteran Jim Justice about an upcoming event he alerted us to the upcoming Memorial Day weekend. This event is a veterans awareness “Salute to Service” scheduled to take place on Saturday, May 25th from 12:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. across Chester Street in the Village Commons city park surrounded by pavilions.

It dates back to 1806 when it was built by Thomas Mullen at 12 Chester St., Front Royal, Virginia and has seen a lot of history. This Memorial Day weekend, it will participate in Veterans Awareness’ first “Salute to Service” activities, including the distribution of materials to assist veterans in agricultural business activities, all to a wide variety of musical accompaniment.

“On May 25, we put together a memorial service sponsored by the tavern. There will be a really nice live music program (starting in the pavilion area), and we will have a number of exhibitors focused on veterans and agricultural support topics. They will be there with educational materials that will provide them with a platform to make themselves known,” Justice began, nodding to the team of sponsors involved.

“We are blessed to do this in collaboration with the Able Forces Foundation, led by ‘Skip’ and Kathy Rogers, who have become good friends, and the Farmer-Veteran Coalition of Virginia (FarmVetCo), a national organization providing support , to do veterans in agriculture and the farm business. “FarmVetCo is bringing its multi-band road trip show “Breaking Ground” to support the entertainment at the Gazebo,” Justice said, adding that more details are available on the Tavern website – www.ChesterStreetTavern.com – There is a special one Event page for “Salute to Service” with all the details.

It won’t be the first appearance by Skip and Kathy Rogers of the Able Forces Foundation at the Town Gazebo-anchored park to commemorate veterans and military service, pictured at a 9/11 memorial event last year. – Oops, sorry about your back to the camera, Kathy. Below is a better shot of Kathy and Skip.

“One of the things Kathy and ‘Skip’ have coordinated is the participation of a special guest, Sam Tate, a Grammy Award-winning singer-songwriter who won Country Song of the Year. Sam comes from Nashville to be our VIP entertainer guest. He is a Vietnam veteran and Purple Heart recipient, and we are honored to have him as a guest to support our community and this memorial,” Justice said of his fellow music-loving veteran.

Speaking of music-loving patrons, we’ve found that local, even neighborhood live music has become an integral part of Chester Street Tavern’s business model, with Justice himself occasionally joining in on the harmonica. We asked if this event would continue in addition to the imported entertainment.

“Yeah, I think we have five or six bands that will be playing that day. Sam Tate, Nashville CMA Songwriter of the Year, Sunny Lane & The Dirty Hippies, FarmVetCo Breaking Ground is joined by a number of local musicians who have played at and supported the tavern, helping us create the live music program we have today have to start and build. “Justice assured us it would be a mix of well-known and lesser-known faces.

John Landis, right, and From the Heart at the Chester Street Tavern’s New Year’s Eve opening. Below are two shots of another gathering of five familiar musical faces at the tavern, from left James Vaughan, Hank Gorecki, Dewey Vaughan, then Ralph Fortune and Shae Parker, the latter two perhaps wondering if they are playing from the same song list as the trio to her right.

Familiar musical faces among tavern patrons include John Landis, whose barbershop is located about four doors from the tavern, and the Vaughan brothers Dewey and James, whose family owns the adjacent building that houses John’s Barbershop and New Creations Hair Salon are accommodated. Others include Shae Parker, Hank Gorecki, Ralph Fortune, Lee Cameron, Bev Williams and The Sidemen, Passage Creek Rising, Shortness of Breath, among others, relative newcomers “Captain” Rich Coon and Michelle Beall, who are due to “The Hobo Mariners” also known are her time at sea in her sailboat, sailing to coastal ports from Florida to Virginia in search of local entertainment.

Bruce Townshend often comes by to add a Celtic, Irish touch to the evening’s musical mix. Below, Hobo Mariners Rich Coon and Michelle Beall turned into a Thursday. bedside table. Here Michelle seems to acknowledge a nice final chord from “Captain” Rich.

“Richie and Michelle are the duo that make up the Hobo Mariners and they gave us the opportunity to hold this fundraiser. Michelle and Richie were a driving force in organizing and introducing this event to the people we want to support, particularly the Farmer-Veteran Coalition. “The Hobo Mariners have been fundraising for veterans through their singing and songwriting for many years,” Justice emphasized of the duo, who have become a regular part of the tavern’s Thursday entertainment rotation in recent weeks.

With entertainment, sales and information booths in the Gazebo Park area scheduled to be open from noon to 7 p.m. on the Saturday before Memorial Day, we asked Justice how this would affect Chester Street Tavern’s hours and entertainment offerings would impact. “The tavern will be the home base for the bands and we are lucky enough to be right across the street from the Gazebo. We will have an area to support their logistics as it has a lot to do with preparing and rotating people to play. Set-up for the day of the event is from 8:00 a.m. to 11:30 a.m., Saturday, March 25th^Th for our exhibitors and the bands – and we will have a few food vendors, a veteran-owned pizza company and a veteran-owned barbecue company.”

Justice noted that Chester Street Tavern is regularly open to the public Thursday through Sunday, running from 3 p.m. to closing on Thursday and Friday and from noon to closing on Saturday and Sunday, with the Closing depends on when crowds die down.

“The tavern will be open that day and will support everyone,” he said of the “Salute to Service” scenario. The plan is for us to host an after-event party as soon as we close at the Gazebo,” as noted above at 7 p.m. “This week we will have our regular show with the Hobo Mariners on Thursday night. On Friday we open at 3 p.m. “I expect that with all the bands coming to town, we’ll be playing something special here at the tavern,” Justice said of an impromptu schedule of musical interactions.

Justice emphasized the importance of live musical entertainment to his business model: “The main thing I want to do here is support the live music scene” – something he has evolved to do, with live music every Thursday he is open until Sunday. He traced the beginning of this commitment to live music to a private party the tavern hosted in its early days. “John (Landis) came over when we were having a little private party on Friday night and said, ‘Hey, do you mind if I line up and play for tips?’ The next thing I know, the crowd is singing along. It reminded me how important live music is to the spirit of the tavern. I play a little harmonica, so I told John he could play as long as he brought a song that I could blow harmonica to, and “he better make me sound good,” Justice joked about the band’s longest-standing musical relationship Tavern.

Jim Justice adds a small harmonica to the offerings of Shae Parker, Hank Gorecki and Ralph Fortune. I think they also received the instruction “Make me sound good.” Regional musicians Dave Elliott, back in front of the camera, and Rick Nowell undoubtedly share a musical memory and laugh during a break in entertainment that evening. And further down, “the King” has found his way back onto the stage and another cast of, as Jim Justice describes it, “this beautiful local community of musicians.”

Speaking of long-standing musical relationships, Justice acknowledged Dewey and James Vaughan and their family, as noted above, the owners of the adjacent building to the south. “The Vaughans have become good friends of the tavern. Dewey, James, Sister Beth and the rest of the Vaughan family just supported me in many different ways. We’re neighbors and good friends,” he said of the second of what he estimates are six to eight groups of local musicians who have become part of the live music rotation at Chester Street Tavern – “Just this whole, beautiful local community of musicians.” .”

But Justice refocused on what’s emerging in his fifth month in business, the Veterans Awareness Salute to Service on May 25, noting, “We’ll see how things flow and let people do that.” “What we always do in the tavern is to let people get together and spend time together. Our motto is: “We welcome old and new friends” and we carry it out by bringing new visitors into contact with a great group of locals.”

“New and old friends” – this happy crowd was from the opening day of the tavern, in fact we believe it was the first table on New Year’s Eve. Jim working the taps for craft beers brewed/distributed in Virginia. And more friends new and old: Jim welcomes a couple from Charlottesville, Martha and Bob, to the tavern on May 5th. Justice, a retired Army Ranger, discovered that his new guest Bob is a retired Marine.

Justice also recognized the Town of Front’s Royal Director of Community Development and Tourism, Lizi Lewis, for her role in bringing the town on board with the Salute to Service event on May 25.

So don’t forget to mark your calendar this month, not only for Monday, May 27th, the traditional Memorial Day events here, but also Saturday, May 25th, for the Salute to Service, which includes a The city’s “soft opening” begins at midday in front of the Royal Village Commons Park and continues across Chester Street at the Chester Street Tavern into the later evening hours. And if you’re mobile, you can also stop by the Humane Society of Warren County’s Julia Wagner Animal Shelter to attend the Salute to the Dogs of War at noon on May 25, which “Skip” Rogers will open before returning to Chester Street for the official opening ceremony of the Salute to Service at 1 p.m.