Friday, July 10, 1998 | 10:55 a.m.
The first thing David Goldwater did when he was elected to the state Assembly in 1994 was to take a signed photo of himself to Poppa Gar's Restaurant.
The Las Vegas Democrat joined lofty company. His photo was hung on a wall alongside those of current and former Nevada governors, U.S. senators, fellow state legislators and Clark County commissioners.
"I just admired all those guys," Goldwater said. "They were the giants in my life. When my photo made it up there, it was something special."
Unfortunately, the famous local diner at 1624 W. Oakey Blvd., which had catered to the state's power brokers since 1965, served its last batch of coffee and country sausage on July 3. Garland Miner, the 91-year-old proprietor affectionately known as "Poppa Gar," blamed the demise on growth that drove his customers to the suburbs and created fierce competition from new restaurants.
"I lost a volume of business and didn't have enough to carry the overhead," Miner said Thursday. "The town got too big. I averaged $1,800 to $2,000 (gross) a day, but then it got down to $1,200 to $1,400."
The ambiance at Poppa Gar's didn't change much in 33 years. Mounted heads of deer and elk and all those mostly black-and-white photos of politicians stared down on customers as they dined in thickly padded booths with plenty of elbow room.
The similarly padded chairs that lined the front dining counter caught the eye of Hollywood movie producers. They paid Miner $2,000 to take over the restaurant for a day, using the front counter as a Jewish delicatessen for the 1987 action film "Heat" starring Burt Reynolds.
But it was mostly the visits from politicians and Miner's willingness to prepare special orders that made Poppa Gar's a popular eatery.
"Poppa Gar's Restaurant has been a mainstay of the 'power breakfast' crowd and an early morning institution in Las Vegas for as long as anyone can remember," Gov. Bob Miller said. "Many a deal has been done over a plate of country sausage and under the watchful eye of the restaurant's famous collection of wall decorations.
"By closing his doors, Poppa Gar is going to cause a lot of people to go in search of a new place to find a good breakfast in Las Vegas."
Miner, a Las Vegas resident since 1939, entered the restaurant business in the 1940s with the late Bob Baskin, a former city and county commissioner. When Miner opened Poppa Gar's, his high-powered clientele followed him.
State Sen. Bill O'Donnell, R-Las Vegas, a fan of Miner's scrambled eggs and coffee, was represented in the photo gallery for more than 10 years.
"If you didn't have your picture hanging up at Poppa Gar's, you weren't a politician," O'Donnell said. "It was sort of a status thing to have your picture hanging with the likes of (U.S. Sen.) Dick Bryan and Bob Miller."
Even though his restaurant was the scene of many important meetings over French dip sandwiches and clam chowder, Miner insisted he was never privy to those discussions.
"That's the reason they came here, because I didn't have anything underneath the tables to listen to them," he said. "They were all my friends."
Many of his powerful friends personalized their photos. "To the great people at Poppa Gar's -- a Nevada institution," Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., wrote. Bryan was governor at the time when he wrote, "Poppa Gar, a great sportsman, a great restaurateur, a great Nevadan."
Coffee was a nickel and ham and eggs were 49 cents when waitress Marilyn Horn went to work for Miner in 1965. The day it closed, Poppa Gar's charged 95 cents for coffee and $5.95 for ham and eggs. The closure cost 18 employees their jobs.
As she bid farewell 33 years later and faced the prospect of searching for a new job, Horn said she felt like a part of herself was missing. She served a lot of politicians over the years.
"You want to know the truth?" she said. "I don't remember a lot of their names."
But she recalled that it was a pleasure to work for Miner. Like her boss, she noticed that many of their old-time customers either faded away or reduced their number of visits.
"A lot of them said they wanted to eat here more often, but they moved to Summerlin or Green Valley," Horn said. "They didn't have the time at lunch time to travel cross-town to come here. I would wait on people once a week where I used to wait on them everyday."
Miner has no plans to re-enter the restaurant business. But he has pleasant memories, such as the times he would close Poppa Gar's on Sundays so that local Cadillac dealer Jim Cashman and friends could feast on Rocky Mountain oysters and Bloody Marys.
"I enjoyed serving people every day and cooking meals for them," said Miner, who did the cooking until about 10 years ago. "I would tell my customers thanks for all the wonderful friendships. I enjoyed every minute of it."
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