The Dixie Tavern was located at the corner of Dwight Street and Penn Avenue in West Lawn, where the Pizza Hut currently stands. Its grand opening was on July 16th, 1949. It remained a popular restaurant and bar in the area until it was replaced by a Pizza Hut in the mid-1970s.
Information about this establishment is hard to come by so if you have any relevant info to share about Dixie Tavern please drop it in the comments.
I used to drink there on the way home from work.
This tavern was owned by Mary and Roy Dillman. They had a set of twins(boy and girl) and another daughter. The bar was in the shape of a horseshoe(they loved horses), also a long shuffleboard. The son, Barry is still in the Berks county area.
Thanks for adding this great info!
Barry and Barbara were the twins, I believe
According to the map I accessed through Google, the Dixie Tavern is in West Wyomissing rather than West Lawn. I thought so, because Frank Hummel had a bicycle shop – sales and repairs – on Dwight Street, and along with my father, he belonged to the West Wyomissing Lions Club.
No, it’s on Penn avenue and definitely West Lawn
West Wyomissing was west lawn post office. So it is correct location on Dwight and penn ave
Hummels bike shop was several blocks north of Penn on Dwight. At the bottom of hill on left. Building still there. I got my big girls Columbia bike there
We lived in the neighborhood of the Iron Bridge in Wyomissing, and my Dad and I walked to Hummel’s Bike Shop one evening where I got a new bike. A delivery truck from the Wyomissing Meat Market ran over my old bike, and the store’s insurance paid for it. Maybe we took the old bike there, but it was beyond repair. I rode my new bike home, and I think Dad took the bus, or Frank Hummel drove him home; he was a family friend.
I am only going from what I thought in the past, fifty years ago, and what the map tells me. The population is only 1,719. You may be right, though. Check this out: https://tinyurl.com/y229fege
The railroad tracks are the border. Type in West Wyomissing and you’ll see that. I guess it’s technically the Springmont section, but everyone who lives here would call it West Lawn. The postal code uses West Lawn, the ads for the restaurant stated West Lawn. My family is from West Wyomissing
Well, we were young, and right or wrong, we always considered north of Penn Avenue to be West Lawn and south to be West Wyomissing. My cousins lived in West Wyomissing, too Maybe “Girard Avenue” comes to mind. A dead end – but then there was a path that went through the woods to Wyomissing. We rode horses around there, rented from Lutz’s Farm in Wyomissing. $2.00 per hour.
Wow D, my Mom also grew up on the dead end of Girard Ave near Lutz farm. She played in those woods with the path between all the time. Shoot me an email I’d love to figure out which house and the general time you would’ve been there
I believe the building may have had had a prior use to the Dixie Tavern. Somewhere I have a photo but cannot locate it showing the building in a style they referred to as a ‘cup’. Either it was a small restaurant or Dixie remodeled it to what folks remember in later years. Perhaps someone else has some input on this.
At one time the Dixie was an Ice Cream joint, according to my mother, Grandparents and family grew up on Norman St. Use to go to the Dixie with my Grandmother, she’d have her beer and I could get a soda. Think the actual ice cream place sat to the right of the bar.