Where the hogs are saucy

MOSES LAKE — Just as the Bar-B-Q Depot owners realized their dream of a neighboring saloon, the high cost of chairs looked like a spoiler.

"We found some really nice chairs and I didn't think we could afford them," Debra Dickinson, owner with brother Wes Dickinson said. "My friend said, 'Why don't you ask your customers to buy them for you?' I said, 'People do that?' She said, 'Oh, yeah, I'll buy two.'"

The chairs bear plaques with the names of customers who made a purchase.

Debra Dickinson said there are still people lining up to buy a chair, after the original 40 were purchased.

"We need about 14 more," she said. "They always threaten to say, 'You're in my chair.' 'Well, has it got your name on it?' 'Yeah.' But nobody has yet. There's plenty of seating."

Wes Dickinson said the saloon includes seating for 65 people. Maximum occupancy is about 100, he added.

The brother and sister have long dreamed of opening something next door to their restaurant. The Saucy Hog Saloon opened May 10, on the six-year anniversary of the Bar-B-Q Depot.

The two locations share a kitchen, so the bar receives appetizer-type meals — so as not to overwhelm kitchen staff — and Debra Dickinson calls it the same business.

The change almost tripled the number of people the Dickinsons employ.

Wes Dickinson said the kitchen may be added onto in time down the road.

Property adjacent to the new saloon has been rented on Gumwood Street and is serving as parking space.

"This was the old owner's house," Debra Dickinson said of the former building occupying what is now the saloon.

"It had 10 rooms in it, 8-foot ceiling," Wes Dickinson remembered.

The location was commercially zoned, so nobody was able to live in it, he added.

"Plus Wes has been a musician all his life, and he's always wanted his own place to perform," Debra Dickinson said.

The Dickinson family has always been musically inclined, she added, noting residents of Moses Lake need something fun to do.

The establishment took four and a half years to open.

"It's been our dream," Debra Dickinson said. "It's taken us that long to get it done, just because we've nickeled and dimed it, did all the work ourselves along with a bunch of really awesome people who volunteered."

The new bar has already been packed on the weekends. Wes Dickinson said plans are in the works for karaoke on Tuesday and Wednesday and jam night on Thursdays. Debra Dickinson hopes to include country dance lessons.

The siblings moved to Moses Lake in 1979. Debra Dickinson left pretty quickly after that, returning again in 1989, while Wes Dickinson used the town as a home base and a base for his band, currently called the Saucy Hog Saloon Band.

"I personally would like to have some smaller venue bands, maybe do some dinner show or something," Debra Dickinson said. "Just bring music back to Moses Lake."

"There's all kinds of things we can do," Wes Dickinson agreed. "My dad's an old cowboy balladeer. I'd like to get him in here every once in a while. Stuff like that, bluegrass and blues festivals."

The saloon, at the same address as the Bar-B-Q Depot at 805 W. Broadway Ave., is open Tuesday to Thursday from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. or a time depending upon crowd size, and until 2 a.m. on Friday and Saturday.

What's in a name?

Over the bar in the saloon is a Russian wild boar head which, the Dickinsons say, is supposedly a world record holder.

The boar was about 9 feet long and not quite 1,000 pounds, Wes Dickinson said.

The head was purchased for the saloon as a mascot, but the other hog offerings comprising the decor were donated by friends.

"Everybody's just been very generous," Debra Dickinson said. "Just because we named the bar the Saucy Hog, everybody started bringing in pigs."

Ever since the siblings opened the barbecue restaurant next door, pigs found their way into advertising, for some reason, Debra Dickinson explained.

"So when we wanted to open a bar, we were just brainstorming all kinds of names," she recalled.

"Everybody seemed to like that one," Wes Dickinson added.

"Nobody even remembers who invented it, but we all kind of agreed the Saucy Hog — you know, barbecue sauce, kind of sassy sauce — was kind of fun and tied in at the same time," Debra Dickinson said.