Credit: Photo Courtesy of Lisa Paige Blair
There’s an “Ultimate Custom Retro Bar” for sale on the Cleveland Craigslist page and it has a bit of a backstory.

Lisa Paige Blair, a Cleveland interior decorator-turned-chef, designed the bar herself and had it custom made. At the same time, she was working to get her candy business off the ground, and would periodically get in touch with Food Network. In 2003, she heard back.

“The guy is saying he’s from Food Network,” Blair tells Scene. “And I was gonna hang up, I thought it was a mean prank, and he said ‘you’re going to regret this if you hang up.'”

They gave her 10 days notice to get a spot ready in her home for filming as part of Food Finds: Christmas with Sandra Pinckney. The bar ended up featuring prominently in the show.

“I designed [the bar] because I loved the ’50s era,” Blair says. “I grew up in that era, and my parents were like Ozzie and Harriet, they loved to entertain. My mom would wear like little aprons to match her shoes, and decorate our food.”

She wanted the bar to look like the one in her childhood home. It includes glass cabinets and a red-and-white striped awning. Blair estimates it weighs more than 700 pounds. The bar is currently listed at $3,200.

Credit: Permission For Use From Lisa Paige Blair (Craigslist)
Blair is selling the bar with the help of “Go-To Guy” Chris Axelrod, who was instrumental in the sale that brought the antique eagle statues back to Public Square. Blair is sad to part with the bar, but as Axelrod says, “You are blessed to have the universe bring [something] to you, and there’s a time when you give it back, to somebody else.”

“[Food Finds] used about six minutes of footage [in 2004], and it turned my life around,” Blair says. “I thought I was ready… you cannot get ready for anything that happens on the Food Network.”

Find the full listing right here.

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This article appears in May 1-7, 2019.

One reply on “You Can Now Score This Retro Bar Once Featured on Food Network on Cleveland Craigslist”

  1. Three grand for that garbage? Are you kidding me? I have a bar in my house that’s built entirely of bricks, with a retro wooden surface on top of it. In front of it are wood-and leather bar stools (with backs) and two matching booth seats (plus table) behind those. All of which are from the Forties and came out of a bar in West Park. Collectors kill for stuff like this. Am I selling any of it? If I got a decent offer, I might.

    In addition, there’s a non-functional 1952 Coca-Cola machine in the corner, and the whole space is wood-paneled. It looks like a BAR…that stuff in the image? That crap looks like somebody’s basement.

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