WINSTED — Steve Rulli stood behind the lacquered bar at his new watering hole, the Main Spot, and said, “I’m not a bar person, but I made this a bar that I like.”
Bottles of whiskey, rum and vodka stood on tiered shelves in front of a mirrored wall. Branded tap handles lined up just behind the bar. A cooler displayed bottles of lagers and IPAs. A jukebox and a soft-tip dart board stood side by side at the end of the bar.
“I swear, it’s one of the smallest bars in Connecticut,” he said with a note of pride in his voice. “We fit 43 people in here.”
He said it is not intended to be fancy; he's not licensed to have live entertainment, food or happy hours. But he has a large customer base, with patrons ranging in age from 21 to 97, he said.
Growing up, he thought of becoming a professional athlete or an architect. “My goal was to never bartend,” he said.
A series of unsuccessful career attempts — he won’t call them failures — finally culminated in the June opening of Main Spot. As a teen in the late 1980s, he lived as “a guy on a couch” with friends at the University of Connecticut in Storrs, attending classes and hoping for a student loan. He couldn’t get one.
“They called me up and said, ‘Yeah, you owe 18 grand by the end of the semester.’ I said, ‘No, I don’t, I’m not going to college now.’”
He decided to go to work and buy a house. He delivered pizzas in Winsted for several years, saved $15,000 and bought a three-family house in 2008. He was 19 years old, and it was the eve of the Great Recession.
“When the market crashed, all my tenants lost their homes,” he said. “And during that time, I was also trying to open up a bar in Torrington. I renovated it all and made it all pretty, because they make you make it pretty before you can apply for the liquor permit. They denied my liquor permit.”
He said he lost everything, including his house, and gave up on the bar. But by 2013, the Clover Café opened at 444 Main St. in Winsted, at what would eventually be home to Main Spot. Rulli worked there as a manager, then part owner, until the COVID-19 pandemic forced it to close in 2020.
“COVID. You know all that, those amazing two weeks that lasted three-and-a-half years,” he said. “We tried to hold on as long as we could. We did a GoFundMe. And then around October, we realized it’s not getting better.”
He gutted the place, stored fixtures at his father’s house, hoping someday to reopen. The opportunity arose in 2022. His former partner, Jonathan Consolini, called and said, “'Let’s do it.'” Rulli said.
During a recent work day, Rulli stood proudly behind the bar, smiling.
“I can be miserable and bitter,” he admitted. “It was there for a little bit. But when the opportunity arose to reopen, I couldn’t resist. So this time, we did it the right way.”
What may or may not be the smallest bar in Connecticut feels like a pretty big accomplishment for a man who used to deliver pizzas to buy a house and two other bars that he couldn’t hold onto. In spite of the bar's limitations, he has four dedicated employees and a schedule of popular activities.
“Sundays, we have football and Bloody Marys,” he said. “Tuesdays, we have darts. We have leagues. And Thursday is Thirsty Thursday, with Dan Wilcox, owner of the Colebrook Store. He bartends every Thursday night and he comes up with tons of different concoctions for drinks, specialty drinks, you know, espresso martinis, jalapeno margaritas. Normal Budweiser drinkers will come in and have his drinks.”
He looked around at his little empire of barstools and dartboards. “I decided to do it, because I’m like, man, Winsted needs a bar. And I love this place. I know every nook and cranny, even in the basement," he said. "I made it a bar where I can see my friends. ... It just makes me happy, and just seeing those people. That’s why I love it.”
The Main Spot is open daily from 1 p.m to 1 a.m. at 444 Main St., Winsted. The bar is also on Facebook.
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