George Markovich: A barkeep to remember

It was a neighborhood establishment where mechanics, judges, doctors and store clerks all parked on bar stools for a shot, a beer or a margarita along with some conversation with the bow-tied barkeep in his starched white shirt who kept their cigarettes lit and glasses full.

In the 1960s, '70s and much of the '80s, while the dimly lit, low-ceilinged lounge on East Grant Road was owned by Markovich and Merrill Broad, it also was a discreet hangout for some politicians and business bigwigs who wanted to canoodle with their gal pals in dark corner booths without their wives finding out.

"That's where the city councilmen took their girlfriends," said Markovich's son, John, who spent his youth helping out at The Shelter.

After Markovich and Broad sold the then-43-seat bar in the late 1980s, the lounge began its slow metamorphosis into a college hangout with a hip, retro '60s-style decor.

By then, Markovich, a World War II vet, was ready to retire. He'd worked in the hospitality business since childhood, when his father set him to work polishing spittoons in the family's Pennsylvania tavern. Yet his close bond with Broad never waned.

"He was as married to Merrill as he was to my mother," John Markovich said of their friendship.

It was more difficult for John Markovich to tell Broad of his father's death than it was to tell his mother, Irene, that her husband of 57 years had died.

"We never failed each other. We never had an argument in 48 years. We were honest with each other to a fault. We were best friends," Broad said of Markovich, who died Jan. 14 of pneumonia. He was 85.

Markovich moved his family to Tucson on a whim in 1961.

"He had a bar back East near the newspaper," said Irene Markovich. "A reporter came in and said to George, 'I'm going to Tucson, Arizona.' And George said, 'Where the hell is Tucson, Arizona?' "

Not that it mattered much. Markovich had a falling out with his brother over their Johns-town, Pa., hotel-restaurant-bar and two weeks later packed his wife and son into the car for a move to the desert.

"I looked in my son's encyclopedia and saw Tucson was a cotton-growing community," Irene said. That's all the family members knew about the Old Pueblo before they pulled into town.

Markovich got a job tending bar at the Tropical Inn on East Speedway, and that's where he met Broad, a transplant from Uniontown, Pa. The men worked together for several years until Broad left to take a job at Manny's Hoof 'n' Horn Supper Club on Casa Grande Highway, and Markovich was hired on at The Shelter.

When the owner of The Shelter wanted to sell in 1964, the bartending buddies went into business together.

They rented the curved concrete-and-stone building for 23 years, although Markovich didn't think much of it in the beginning.

"George said it looked like a funeral home," his wife said.

The windowless structure was built in 1961. A 1996 Arizona Daily Star article stated it was constructed as a bomb shelter to shield people from an atomic blast, but Broad said that's a lot of bunk.

"It was never a bomb shelter. People just say that. It was built during the Cuban Missile Crisis, but it wasn't a bomb shelter," he said.

Regardless of its appearance, The Shelter served its purpose as a neighborhood watering hole, where drinks were poured 18 hours a day.

For the first few years, before they could afford to hire employees, Markovich and Broad worked in shifts, taking turns manning the bar. They opened at 7 a.m. and by 11, when an overnight shift ended at Tucson Medical Center, every stool was filled, Broad said.

Some patrons were there when the doors opened.

"All the construction workers would come in for a drink before they went to work," John Markovich said. "You wouldn't believe how many of those old-timers would be at the bar having a drink at 8 o'clock in the morning."

"There aren't many neighborhood bars left anymore," Irene Markovich said.

Between pouring drinks, Markovich was a fix-it man, repairing the ice machine, the cooler, the plumbing, anything around the bar that broke. If he ran out of things to fix, he took in work from his customers. While patrons sat at the bar, Markovich fixed their toaster, vacuum cleaner or other appliance for free, his son said.

"George fixed everything. He was a great fixer," Broad said. "I did the bookkeeping. I didn't know how to do any of that stuff. We were a real team."

On holidays, Irene Markovich prepared feasts for customers.

"Irene was a great cook and baker, so we'd have free dinners on holidays — July 4, Easter, Christmas. New Year's Eve was very lavish," Broad said.

For years, John Markovich pitched in at the bar, too.

"Every Sunday I used to lift all these stools up and clean the legs," he said, pointing to the sturdy, thickly padded bar seating in an old black-and-white photograph. He also cleaned the bathrooms and the sinks mounted under the bar. "My father had to scrub spittoons for his father, so I didn't have it bad."

The Shelter's clientele, was, for the most part, a laid-back bunch of regulars.

"These two stools here," said John Markovich, reminiscing over a photo of his father tending bar, "the first two stools, Dutch and Butch, they were on those stools every time I went in."

When Markovich and Broad finally sold The Shelter, the men were proud they ended their business partnership debt-free.

"We didn't do any great-shakes business there, we didn't get rich, but we enjoyed it," Broad said.

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