Twisted Vines Pub and Eatery is a small, family-run bar in the small town of Potosi. Twisted Vines was known as Potosi Inn previously until John and Rose Czyzewski decided to take a break from owning a bar in 2017. The bar sat vacant until 2019 when new owners took over the bar and changed the name to Twisted Vines Pub and Eatery. In 2020 Tara and Kenny Bauer took over the bar and have been running it for four years. Tara and Kenny decided they would take over Twisted because the bar was starting to struggle. “I did it to keep a business in the community that people enjoy coming to.” The Bauers were all excited but nervous to start running Twisted Vines.
Before they took over the bar, Tara had worked for the previous owners, while Kenny was and still is a full-time operating engineer during the week, putting natural gas into the ground. Tara and Kenny are very social people and love talking to and meeting new people. Together they have five kids: Christian, Trenton, Nelson, Mikaylia, and Damian. Damian and Nelson both help their parents with the bar. Nelson cooks during the week and Damian helps in the kitchen and waits tables during the weekend.
All the Bauers love working at the bar and meeting new people. They all joke around and have a good time at work, but they all still get the work done. The Bauers have created a place where people love to go and have a cup of coffee in the morning or a drink or two at night. Every weekend they have a band for entertainment for the people who love to have a drink and listen to music. Not only have the Bauers made a place for the community, but they also created another family.
Running the bar was a great addition to their lives, but it has also made their lives a little harder. The Bauers had many family traditions that they had started with their older kids during the holidays that they cannot always do anymore with owning Twisted Vines. Not only has the bar made family traditions hard, but spending time with family has also become difficult. “It's extremely hard because when the business is done it's never done,” said Kenny Bauer. The Bauers find ways to work around the struggle to spend time with family by making memories at the bar with their kids.