The Palo Verde Lounge, one of Tempe's oldest bars, located at the corner of Broadway Road and Industrial Park Avenue, has closed after the passing of owner Charles Marthaler on Aug. 18.
The bar opened as Park Inn Tavern in 1964, then changed names to Adobe Lounge in 1972 and The Palo Verde Lounge in 1982. One of Marthaler's bartenders, Rich Thurman, posted a tribute to him on Facebook.
"Today we lost Chuck Marthaler (Palo Verde), and I’ve been trying to figure out how you summarize someone like Chuck, or a place like the Palo Verde Lounge, in a Facebook post. I’m not sure you can," The post started. He said he was one of the people who started as a patron and became a bartender. He remembered Chuck's stories. And whether he made people laugh or frustrated
them, underneath it all, Chuck was protecting the place he had created.
An invitation to remember the man behind the bar
"Chuck understood something that is becoming harder and harder to find in this world: sometimes people just need a place where they can show up exactly as they are," Thurman wrote. "His passing leaves a vacuum that is going to be extremely hard to fill. Because you can replace a bartender. You can replace an owner. You can replace bottles, pool tables, jukeboxes and neon signs. But you can’t easily replace the person who spent decades holding the door open and somehow allowing this beautiful, (expletive) little community to grow around him."
According to a Facebook post dated Aug. 22, Yucca Tap Room is hosting the Palo Verde team to celebrate Marthaler on Sunday, Sept. 20, 2026, at 2 p.m. But it's not just for them. The post read, "If you knew Chuck, drank at Palo, worked there, played there, or just want to come pay your respects, you are welcome."
What will happen to Palo Verde Lounge?
While the future of the bar was unknown at the time of writing, "the bar will most likely be closing," said manager Ashliegh Garcia. There are no new owners waiting in the wings. She shared a photo of the bar's exterior with the words RIP CHUCK painted on it in blue. "Someone painted the side of the building," she wrote in a statement to The Republic. "The history in that photo alone..."
Reach the restaurant critic at BAnooshahr@azcentral.com. Follow @baharcreative on Instagram.
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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: One of the oldest dives in metro Phoenix closed after 62 years
