Former Cooper Station restaurant site purchased by used car dealer
The now-closed Cooper Station Restaurant in Sarver may have a new lease on life after several years of abandonment.
Earlier this month, the owners of Lenzi Auto Sales in Sarver purchased the property from Cellar Works Brewing Co., which purchased the restaurant shortly after it closed in 2019.
Owner Josiah Lenzi said the space will be used for additional cars and service for the dealership, which is located roughly a quarter-mile away.
The former Cooper Station property consists of both the original restaurant building and a separate building that served as a banquet hall. Lenzi plans to use one building for service work and the other building to store additional cars.
“We started out offering outside service work to clients, and we ended up booked far into the future,” Lenzi said. “So we’re expanding the service. We'll have six, seven, eight, nine additional bays. And we’re going to use the other (building) to expand the sales as needed.”
Lenzi expects the work on the new space to be finished by the end of July.
The Cooper Station Restaurant on North Pike Road, once marked by its iconic red caboose along the side of the road, has had a tumultuous history. From 2014, Cooper Station was owned by Lora C. Rothen, who struggled to make the restaurant profitable before closing it in 2019.
In December 2019 Cellar Works Brewing Co. purchased the property and planned to turned it into its second taproom establishment, following its location on South Pike Road in Sarver. However, the COVID-19 pandemic curtailed those plans, and in January, Cellar Works announced that it was putting the property back up for sale.
In March 2020, during Cellar Works’ ownership, the caboose was sold to the Butler-Freeport Community Trail.
In a Facebook comment, a representative from the dealership said, “All I’m going to say is, it’s going to be awesome for everyone.”
No one at Cellar Works Brewing Co. returned requests for comment.
