Old Ironsides

The Old Ironsides was established in 1934 with William Bill Bordisso obtaining the first liquor license issued in Sacramento after Prohibition. Bill operated the bar with the help of his brother, Lou Bordisso, and their wives, Lena and Sunny. In 1949, the Old Ironsides bottle shop and game room opened. The bottle shop was operated by the wives and was located in the back where the restrooms are today. Back then bottle shops were the only places to purchase liquor from before the big box warehouses and grocery stores started selling alcohol. A big part of the business for Old I back then was filling gift orders for lobbyists and politicians, and business owners for their clients. The game room housed a fireplace and piano player as well as shuffleboard, pinball and claw machines that were popular at night and also helped keep business steady. In addition to being a bar and a bottle shop, lunch was also offered Monday through Friday at the Old Ironsides. Much different than the menu today, lunch in the thirties, forties and fifties consisted of a single special every day, like spaghetti and meatballs or beef short ribs that would be repeated weekly. In the 1960s, Billee Jean (daughter of Bill and Lena Bordisso) and her husband Sam Kanelos joined the family business. Sam and Billee heralded in the glory years of the cocktail hour. Not the typical happy hour as we know today, these were two or three martini lunches frequented by local politicians, judges and state workers. The couple also continued to operate the Old Ironsides Bottle Shop. Fast forward to the nineties. The next generation of the Kanelos family stepped in and convinced their parents, Sam and Billee Jean, to turn Old Ironsides into a nightclub. Daughter Kim started by booking shows and a dance club called The Voodoo Hut, which brought in the younger crowd, while her sister Marla later joined her by booking the touring acts. What proved to be a great business decision, Old I continually hos