Dude decor: Man cave store opens in Soap Lake

SOAP LAKE — You’re just about done putting that mancave together.

You’ve got the flat-screen TV covering an entire wall, a cushy recliner and even several different kinds of beer on tap.

What else do you need?

A pizza clock. A pinup girl poster. Maybe even a working slot machine.

“This isn’t really an antique shop, it’s a unique shop. That’s what we like to consider ourselves,” said Mark Beyer, co-owner with Pat Bolte of B&B Mancaves NW in Soap Lake. “Where are you going to find a pizza clock?”

B&B Mancaves is well stocked with home bar supplies — shot glasses, rubber bar mats, cocktail shakers, packs of Solo cups, promotional banners and flyers for several beer brands — as well as used and collectible sports clothing, posters, tin signs, and even a few old electric slot machines and a lone antique gas pump.

“Old bar stock, fantastic stuff from a different era,” Beyer said. “We’ve got a Harlem Globetrotters jersey with seven signatures ... things we’ve just come across.”

Beyer said he and his business partner are relative newcomers to Soap Lake who have known each other since 1982 and served together in the Air Force. They got into the business of equipping mancaves because, as electronics specialists, they were asked to help fix a slot machine.

Because, as Beyer said, at the time, early in the COVID-19 pandemic, casinos were closed, and so, used slot machines that no longer complied with state regulations were suddenly in high demand.

“We started fixing slot machines, ended up in mancaves. Everybody had mancaves where they kept their slot machines,” Beyer said. “Have friends over for casino night, play some cards, drink some beers, play the slot machine, and everybody’s happy.”

Beyer said they’re working on several slot machines and have acquired a few very old pinball machines and jukeboxes they hope to get up and running, as well. But all they are doing right now is getting things running, not restoring to brand-new.

“We’re repairers right now, and not refurbishers,” he said. “We want to bring our skill level up where we can renovate and refurbish.”

Beyer said his wife designed the inside of the store — formerly the B&B Cafe, located on the corner of First Avenue Northeast and state Route 17 on the north side of town — to evoke the interior of the classic 1957 Chevrolet Bel Air.

Well, not quite all of it. About half the store aims for a different clientele who might be equipping “she sheds” rather than mancaves.

“Have to have a lady section,” Beyer said. “We’ve got tea pots, birdhouses, collectibles, glassware, a teddy bear box. The idea is to feel like a country cabin on a lake.”

And a lot of higher-end women’s clothes, Beyer said, like Coldwater Creek, Chico’s and J. Jill, which Beyer said they bought on consignment and hope to sell over the course of the winter, beginning with a major sale in October.

It’s a gamble, Beyer said, especially given that he may end up retiring earlier than he expected given the mandate from President Joe Biden that all government employees be vaccinated against COVID-19.

“We were crazy enough to start a business in a depressed economy at the end of the tourist season for tourist business,” he said. “What were we thinking?”

Charles H. Featherstone can be reached at cfeatherstone@columbiabasinherald.com.