By Dean Wells
It was 20 years ago this month when Lonnie Pound left his house in western New York with a chair and his German shepherd.
He was on mission as he trudged through the January snow.
Pound plopped himself down next to a newly opened snowmobile trail along his 60 acres of land outside of Findley Lake and began counting.
He watched 60 snowmobiles go by over the next hour.
And that was his ah-ha moment.
“I figured I could do something with that,” Pound said years later as he took a break from installing hardwood flooring in a new bridal suite at his family’s restaurant and event center, Pine Junction.
As they say, location is everything. And Pound figured he had just the right location to sell food and beer. “So, we opened a speakeasy,” he said. “We had coolers of beer on the ground. We didn’t handle the money: there was a can for people to put donations.”
In addition to beer, Pound offered five different sandwiches to hungry snowmobilers.
That speakeasy has grown quite a bit over the last two decades, becoming a regional destination.
Three generations of Lonnie and Shirlee Pound’s family have worked at Pine Junction at one time or another, including their four children and nine of their 10 grandchildren. The restaurant has gone through four additions and now includes a massive outdoor pavilion for concerts and private events.
Pound said his original plan was to sell food and beverages over the winter—nothing more.
“But a lot of people suggested we stay open all year.”
The Pounds listened, and their business has been growing ever since.
One thing has remained constant over the years.
“We started out with hamburgers,” Pound said, “and we’ve never changed the burgers from day one.”
Another tradition from day one was Pine Junction’s use of local food vendors.
“We use Curtze out of Erie and Maplevale from Falconer,” Pound said. “That’s the way we have always done it, trying to keep things as local as possible.”
Seven years ago, the Pounds made their largest improvement to Pine Junction to date, constructing an outdoor pavilion, which was completed in 2020.
“We were picking up on weddings and we wanted to have a bigger event center,” Pound said. “Prior to that we were using big tents. We were always having to deal with stuff like wet grass with the tents.”
Completion of the pavilion gave birth to one of Pine Junction’s most popular traditions: the Don’t Tell Shirlee Concert in the Pines, held at the end of July each year.
Pound said he was visiting a bar in Tybee Island, GA, and struck up a conversation with a man from California who promoted concerts. “He had access to all of these bands,” Pound said. “He would book them on weekdays and no one would know who they were until they got there.”
Pound took the idea and ran with it. He booked the Allman-Betts Band, featuring the sons of Gregg Allman, Dickie Betts and Berry Oakley from the legendary Allman Brothers, and kept quiet about the band’s identity—even from his wife.
She found out when she was accidentally forwarded an email on her phone during a road trip that mentioned the band’s sizeable booking fee.
“She looked at me and said, ‘What the hell is this?’” Pound said and laughed. “That was a long ride home.”
The concert was a success. Pine Junction has made it a tradition, dubbing it the Don’t Tell Shirlee Concert in the Pines.
“The first year or two, we didn’t tell anyone who (the headliner) was going to be,” Pound said. “But then we realized we had to so we could market it better. We don’t make a lot of money off of it. We’ve made it a sponsored event. It’s cool to be able to give something to the community.”
Pine Junction continues to draw people from across the region, along with the occasional celebrity, including Kim Coates of “Sons of Anarchy” fame, who paid a visit while serving as grand marshal for Erie’s Roar on the Shore motorcycle rally.
“He was cool,” Pound said. “I got to hang out with him.”
Pound said that Coates enjoyed the restaurant so much, he made a return trip later in the week.
“He taxied out (of his hotel at Peek’n Peak) by himself. “I wish I had known he was going to come back. He was a cool guy. One of the cooks actually gave him a ride back to his hotel.”
You can view Pine Junction’s upcoming events at www.pinejunctiontavern.com.
Pine Junction is located at 9757 Bailey Hill Rd, Sherman, NY 14781.