Cotati’s historic tavern 8 Ball is soft-launching Saturday under new management: a woman-led team ready to bring good times to the neighborhood bar.
In January, Julie LaMalfa Black, Jenafer Keys and Audrey De Vere Hunt announced they had acquired the tavern, making it a woman-led and owned business. Their official slogan for the soft opening is “The girls are calling the shots.”
The 89-year-old tavern has long garnered local regulars and even generated interest thanks to multiple urban legends around its history, including that it allegedly got its name from an old, battered eight ball supposedly found in the rafters of a building on the property. Former owner Howard Jacobsen, a builder by trade, and his wife ran the tavern for decades and sold it in the early 1950s.
The bar has since changed hands multiple times, including in 2018 to Brian Tatko and Greg Johnson. They made minor modifications, including new floors and some structural improvements. The old building still has irregularly-sized doors and a low ceiling, which have hung on. The pair then sold to Alan Troxel, who ran the bar for a year…