Business & Development

In the game: Round Up Saloon’s new owners take a sporting chance

BRADLEY COOK/FLASHBOX STUDIOOwners Jeannie and Floyd Plummer, and bartender Shelly Batty, are focused on satisfying current customers, and drawing newcomers, too.

CRESWELL – Is it possible for new owners of a sports bar to be too fanatical about sports?

In the case of Floyd and Jeannie Plummer, who just bought The Round Up Saloon, perhaps so. One could argue, though, that a little fanaticism might not be such a bad thing. 

“We can’t really come down and watch a game that we want to watch,” Floyd said. “Because people are still trying to get to know us, or they happen to like us and they don’t leave us alone.

“We had a friend here watching a Beaver game and we all left together, and he goes, ‘Jesus, I’m never watching a game with you guys ever again.’ We wanted to watch the game and he couldn’t even talk.” 

Don’t misunderstand, The Round Up has never been a sports bar, and the Plummers don’t intend to make it into one. But one of their first orders of business was installing four new large-screen TVs, just in time for football season. All Ducks and Beavers contests will take precedence over any other programming. 

Floyd said that rather than becoming a full-fledged sports bar, he sees The Round Up just becoming a little more sports-oriented. 

“We don’t want to lose any of our existing customers. We have our regular crowd here that’s been coming here for a long time,” he said. 

They said they couldn’t be happier about their bartenders, most of whom are holdovers from the previous ownership. Robin Joyce now is the new manager, and leads a team that includes Dee Parent, Shelly Batty, Audrey Lamb, Shandy Williams and Alyson Lynch.

“The girls make it work,” Jeannie said. “They want this business to last.”

“One of the girls actually quit her other job and wants to be here and she really wants to help make sure it does last, and we have a great regular clientele that’s growing,” Floyd said. “You see a lot of younger people now, later hours, and you get the regulars here earlier.

“We’re going to continue a tradition started by (former owner) Kelly (Coughlin) and open up on Thanksgiving and Christmas. We want to be that place that people go who don’t have anywhere to go for turkey and stuffing.”

And they want people to feel free to bring food in from next door, from Dak Thai Cuisine or Pazzo, and to be to be good sports and wear masks.

Floyd and Jeannie said the idea to buy a bar pretty much came along out of the blue … and onto the green. 

“We’ve known Kelly for a while and we met him to play golf,” Floyd said. “One day he said, ‘Someday maybe I’ll sell you the bar.’” 

BRADLEY COOK/FLASHBOX STUDIOPatrons enjoy two of the four big-screen TVs the Plummers added for better sports viewing.



The Plummers, Creswell residents since 2005, didn’t take the proposal too seriously. After all, Floyd made a comfortable living working at Wesco Cedar, Inc., the family business in Goshen. However, the cedar wood industry has just recently become unstable, with prices going through the roof.  

“Then last year in June, Kelly hadn’t mentioned anything in a long time, he said he wanted to sell the bar. He wanted to know if we were interested,” Floyd said. “We have the cedar business, but we don’t know how long it’s going to last. It could be 10 years, it could be 3 or 5 years. Prices are so high.

“This is something we can do for a long time as long as we enjoy it.” 

“Actually we were kind of looking for something to invest in,” Jeannie said, “and this just kind of happened.”

Once they knew they were going to make the purchase, for legal reasons, they couldn’t let the cat out of the bag.

“Nobody knew. Kelly and his lawyer and his accountant knew, his mom knew, our daughter knew, but we could never be in here learning stuff,” Floyd said. “We’ve always been behind the 8-ball learning as we go. We’d stop by once a week, sit at the bar, talk and get ideas.” 

To say that the Plummers are a sports family would be understating the matter.

For many years they were Seahawks season ticket-holders. 

“We were wearing ourselves out, getting up at 4 and setting up for games,” Floyd said. 

Both lived in Corvallis for long stretches, so they love the Beavers. And as soccer fans, they cheer on the Sounders and the Timbers, too. 

“We were in Seattle with her daughter and her husband,” Floyd recalled. “We were in an Irish bar called Fado and people were cheering like crazy. There was a soccer game on TV, and it was like 11 o’clock at night, and it turns out it was a replay from a game three years ago.” 

“I thought maybe we should start getting Sounders tickets, if fans are going this crazy,” 

Among the Plummers’ plans: Soups on the Friday menu, more potluck dinners and live bands on the weekends. 

“A lot of people want to have a rooftop bar,” Floyd said.

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