#6494 - Presto Hotel, Collier Township, PA - 3/24/2026

Presto Hotel, Presto, Pennsylvania

Recently a friend posted photos from inside an old hotel/bar not 7 miles from our house which I would have made a very high priority had I not the impression that it was permanently closed (a status that Yelp maintains to this day, which is perfectly fine with the owner, who is not casting out for a wider range of customers). The place was made all the more intriguing by the antique Brunswick bar in Lisa's photos! We made it out there Wednesday night, and had a long chat with the old hotel's interesting owner Linda.

Linda has run the bar and hotel since 2011, when her mother passed away. Her father Stanley A. Holeva Sr. and mother Dolores purchased the hotel in 1959, with Dolores running it by herself after Stanley passed in 1966. Linda is an artist and an actress, who goes way back with Michael Keaton, and who has herself played in a number of stage dramas (the bar includes a photo of her in the role of Honey Bruce, wife of the legendary comedian Lenny) and is perhaps best known for her television role as a member of the Farrell Clan in "Outsiders" from 2016 to 2017. 

Presto Hotel, Presto, PA

Linda's art also graces the bar inside and out, perhaps most strikingly in her version of a painting in a Tombstone Arizona saloon, which covers the central mirror of the Brunswick bar, with the mirror behind sporting a large crack from an errant beer bottle out of the hands of a drunken biker. But her touch also shows up in various paintings throughout the bar, from the bar walls to the bathrooms and even the exterior signs. But as far as my own interests go, some of her most striking work is the job she did in stripping and staining the antique Brunswick. This is a Brunswick model I've identified in a handful of other bars around the country, but never in a condition quite this nice. Linda said there is some oral history that the bar was acquired by Thomas Park, the original builder and owner of the bar, who had it shipped up from the borough of Carnegie.

Various sources have it that the Hotel was first constructed by Park in 1900, and the bar added a couple decades later.  Indeed, I have found Park's applications for liquor licenses for the place in the years from 1920 to 1923 (yes, Pennsylvania saloons kept being granted liquor licenses well into the first few years of federal prohibition, ostensibly to sell only "near beer," 2.5% alcohol or less (wink wink).

However, whatever the actual construction date of the current building, I also found records of liquor licenses for this location, under a string of different owners, from 1895 to 1929. The owner of the liquor license in 1929, a Victor Redinger, died Nov 6, 1920, and Thomas Park had possession of it by the first quarter of that year. I do not know if the information that Park constructed and ran the hotel from 1900 may be inaccurate, or perhaps he owned the hotel but leased the bar business for the first two decades? (And if the construction date is correct, some other building at the same address must have been  treating the tonsils of the miners and other thirsty locals.

I'm sure that I do not have to explain that I always feel a great deal of gratitude to people like Linda, who preserve and keep alive these great historic bars, particularly when they attend so much to the history and maintaining the spirit of the place, even as they add their own unique contributions. Linda strives to maintain the beer and shot spirit of the bar, and as mentioned, she does not regret that Yelp lists her as closed, as she prefers the locals and small number of people who discover the bar in other ways. We were happy to hear that we would be welcome back soon.

5224 Thoms Run Rd, Presto, PA 15142 - (412) 221-9970
Est. 1900? - Building constructed: 1900?
Previous bars in this location: Unknown
Web site:
Articles: link - link - link