The First Steak Pit in Saskatchewan: Maryfield’s Arlington Hotel

Maryfield's Arlington Hotel, September 2012. Source

In 1976, Reg and Louise Dlouhy, along with Louise’s brother Ivan Findlay, bought the Arlington Hotel in Maryfield. One year later, they opened what is reported to be the first steak pit in Saskatchewan -- some say the first in Canada. Whatever the case, the steak pit proved to be a major attraction for Maryfield, which is located between Moosomin and the Manitoba border in the southeastern part of the province.

The Dlouhys had spent many years on the road, touring with the Regina-based band, Gene Dlouhy and His Swingin’ Canadians. Click here to hear the band's song, Drinking Wine,released in 1964.Throughout the 1950s, 1960s and early 1970s, Reg played saxophone with his brother Gene, who played trumpet. In 1970, the band moved to Calgary. They were in the process of moving to Las Vegas when Reg suffered a heart attack. Since Louise was from Maryfield, the couple decided to move there with their three children and get into the hotel business. 

Bartender at the Arlington Hotel, Maryfield, July 18, 1978. Regina Leader-Post.

“I think it was the travelling we did, and our association with supper clubs that gave us the necessary insight into the business,” Reg explained to the Regina Leader-Post in July 1978. “We have seen some beautiful places, and some that weren’t so nice. And we have taken the best of all of them and tried to mold it into our own district.” That same month, the Dlouhys served their 5,000^th steak in the eight months since they opened the steak pit.

Louise Dlouhy watching a customer grill his steaks. Regina Leader-Post, July 18, 1978.

The Dlouhys bought their beef from the Co-op in Brandon, Manitoba. “We never freeze the steaks – well, they aren’t around long enough to be frozen,” Reg told the newspaper. Customers could pick and cook their own steaks on a natural gas grill. The only food that came out of the kitchen was salad, a potato, and bread to accompany the steak.

History of the Arlington Hotel

The Arlington Hotel at Maryfield, c1912.  Source

Built in 1906, the three-story Arlington Hotel on the corner of Main Street and Assiniboine Avenue in Maryfield, Saskatchewan, featured an attractive front porch and second-floor balcony. The hotel had a ballroom, a dining room, and – of course – a bar.

Oluf Olson and his wife Dolly did their best to make their hotel guests comfortable. The bar in particular was very hospitable. In 1910, Olson was fined $50 plus court costs for keeping the bar open after hours. The Canada census shows that, in 1911, the hotel was a thriving business. In addition to the Olson family, the hotel had 18 registered “lodgers,” four chambermaids, two Scottish porters, two telephone operators, an Irish bartender, and a Chinese cook all residing within its walls.

When Prohibition began on July 1, 1915, Maryfield’s Arlington Hotel managed to stay open for business under the ownership of James Anderson. All the beautiful fixtures in the barroom – the gleaming brass and the long, polished wood bar, were removed and replaced by a pool room. Operating a hotel during Prohibition had its challenges. Without bars, hotel values plummeted.. In 1919, John Dodds purchased the Arlington Hotel and under his watch, the thirsty traveller was able to satisfy his wants. The town’s local history reports, “Mr. Dodds … was caught on at least two occasions by a [provincial] liquor inspector and paid the appropriate fines for his indiscretion.”

John James (J. J.) Harris and his wife Florence owned and operated the Arlington Hotel from 1922 to 1944. In 1935, when the Saskatchewan government finally permitted the sale of beer by the glass, Harris applied for a liquor license. A “local option vote” was held in Maryfield and the vote passed by a margin of only six votes – 79 to 73. The Arlington Hotel was able to serve beer once again.

Fire Destroys the Hotel 

 

One evening in late February 1945, Falmer and Louise Skallerup were preparing dinner for the Arlington’s guests. They had purchased the hotel in 1944 and were run off their feet. It was the first day of the biggest men’s curling bonspiel that Maryfield had ever hosted, and the hotel was full. At about 4:30 p.m., a fire broke out in the kitchen. Thanks to Mrs. Skallerup, all the hotel occupants were alerted and got out of the building safely – just as the fire swept up the stairwell, engulfing the entire building in flames. Firemen from Moosomin, 30 miles away, raced their pumper truck to Maryfield where townspeople had formed a bucket brigade to try and save the hotel. By the time the firemen arrived, the flames had destroyed the hotel and were threatening nearby buildings. Despite the disaster, the men’s bonspiel went ahead, with the curlers accommodated in a temporary dormitory set up at the Maryfield auditorium.

 Out of the Ashes, Into a Steak Pit

The Arlington Hotel was rebuilt a year after the fire and still stands in Maryfield today. When the Dlouys bought it, they completely remodeled the building, reducing the number of guest rooms from thirteen to nine in order to accommodate their family of five.

 

Maryfield's Arlington Hotel, 2009. Google Maps

Today, Chilly's Pub & Steak Pit in the Arlington Hotel still features cook-your-own steaks accompanied by salad, garlic bread and baked potato. Apparently, the chicken wings and ribs are also very good.

 

© Joan Champ, 2018. 

Hotel Food: Home Cooking, Steak Pits and Wing Nights

Fine dining at the Maple Leaf Hotel, Maple Creek, 1914. Glenbow Archives, NA-3811-75

The hotel dining room was always a busy place in the early 1900s. Meals were served to boarders, traveling guests, local farmers and railway workers. For many years, trains stopped in small towns every day and meals were served to the crews. Annual Christmas dinners served in hotels were real banquets. Dining rooms were decorated with bunting, miniature flags and evergreens, and lighted with gas lamps and Chinese lanterns. The guests sat down to a lavish menu, the likes of which few had ever seen.  

Cecil Hotel dining room, Colgate, c. 1910. From Prairie Gold (1980)

Hotel cooks came from a variety of backgrounds. Chinese cooks were the mainstay of many hotel restaurants in the early days. The Silver Plate Hotel at Govan boasted of “an English chef who has few peers” in a 1908 edition of the Prairie News. The Hitt brothers, owners of the Griffin Hotel, brought their staff with them from the United States. “The Negro cook [Chloe] prepared the best food I have eaten anywhere,” one customer recalls in the Griffin local history book.  “[The owners] provided her with the ingredients for southern items such as beaten biscuits, yams and fried chicken.” Chloe married a “coloured” porter from Regina. When the Hitts sold the Griffin Hotel and returned to the States, she and her new husband went with them. 

Other hotel cooks were more “home grown.”  In 1923, Mrs. Mari Lewis was hired by the Vanstone family to operate the hotel dining room at Central Butte. Mrs. Lewis had spent three summers on cook cars preparing meals for threshing crews. She brought produce from the Lewis farm to help out with meals. “The turkeys came in very handy for the banquet we served to about 50 war veterans,” Mrs. Lewis’ daughter, Gertrude Lokier, recalled for the town history book. During the 1940s, on a typically busy morning at the Mont Nebo Hotel, Annette Taylor was up at 4 a.m.  She baked 25 pies – eight lemon, eight raisin and nine apple. After serving breakfast she headed for the town butcher shop, where for a dollar she bought a good sized beef roast. “By nine a.m. the roast was in the oven,” Donna Kolchuck writes in the Mont Nebo history. “At noon the aroma of roast beef, gravy and mashed potatoes was prevalent.” Mrs. Buhler, cook at the Fairlight Hotel, was a favorite with the commercial travelers who stayed at the hotel. They called her “Ma” for they knew “that regardless of what time they arrived, Ma would get them something to eat.” 

Steak pit, Whitewood Hotel, 2006.  Joan Champ photo

Today, small-town Saskatchewan hotels offer everything from bar food (chicken wings, nachos, dried ribs) to fully licensed family dining with great food. The steak pits that were added to many hotel dining rooms in the 1970s can still be found around the province today. At the Jansen Hotel & Steak Pit, for example, customers can cook their own steaks on the natural gas grill in the 22-seat steak pit area off the beverage room. 

One of the best kept secrets in Saskatchewan has to be the White Bear Hotel. People travel from miles around to the town of 13 for the extensive menu and unique décor. In the summer, visitors check out the flower gardens and fruit orchard where the White Bear Hotel grows its own pears and crabapples. In 2007, a visitor to the hotel wrote the following on his blog: “A big part of the reason we make the trip to the White Bear Hotel is the warm hospitality and good food at a reasonable cost. The couple [Wayne and Patricia Spence] who own and have run the hotel and restaurant for 29 years take pride in what they do and genuinely enjoy visiting with their patrons. What gets me is you would never expect to find good food like that in such an out of the way place. It seems to me this is why people travel to White Bear and patiently wait for 2 hours plus for their food. It is so charming and unexpected – one of those little surprises that make life interesting.”  At the time of writing this post, the White Bear Hotel was for sale.

White Bear Hotel, 2009. Photo courtesy of Ruth Bitner

© Joan Champ, 2011

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