It’s immediately clear upon entering downtown Lafayette that the Roundup Saloon, a 91-year-old dive bar, sticks out in the affluent East Bay town. The leafy suburb is known for its bucolic reservoir, excellent standardized test scores and $2 million medium home price — not for ex-biker bars that can stay rowdy into the wee hours of the morning.
But the historic tavern is even more of an outlier than it first appears.
An oasis in a dive bar desert
“It’s the only bar of its kind in Lafayette, right now?” I asked Karen Johnson, who owns the Roundup Saloon with husband Mike, on a recent visit.
“It’s the only bar in Lafayette,” Karen corrected me.
In fact, it’s the only dive bar in all of Lamorinda, a 37.5 square mile region that includes Lafayette, Moraga and Orinda. By 10 p.m. every night, the area is a booze desert…