Saloon Owner - TV Tropes

Paden: Compliments to you Miss Stella. This is what I call a saloon.
Stella: Thanks. That's what I call it too.

• An American Tail: Fievel Goes West: Cat R. Waul is of the villainous variety, as his saloon is used as a powerbase for his ultimate plan. However, he also wants to make it a good saloon, which is why he hires the mouse with the enchanting voice, Tanya, as his personal diva.

• In The Big Trees, Daisy Fisher is a saloon owner and Miss Kitty who follows Jim Fallon wherever he moves to because she knows she can make money anywhere Fallon is operating. She arrives in Redwood with a bunch of her girls at just the right time to help Fallon keep control of his rowdy crew of lumberjacks.
• Billy Two Hats: Copeland, a retired buffalo hunter, runs his own saloon at his remote trading post.
• God's Gun: Jenny owns the Jenny Saloon;the only watering hole in Juno City. The number of scantily clad saloon girls she employs implies she mighty be a Miss Kitty as well (although she insists she runs a 'respectable place').
• The Gunfight at Dodge City: Bat Masterson enters a partnership with Lily, the proprietress of the Lady Gay saloon who faces ruin as the Sheriff and his deputies are attempting to force them out of business by first murdering her original partner, than frightening off her croupiers.
• Johnny Guitar: Vienna is one of the most iconic protagonist examples in Western films, with a sympathetic and tragic backstory moreover. She was a moll to gunslinger Johnny Logan who abandoned her, leaving her to find work as a showgirl and prostitute until she saved enough money to become a legitimate competent businesswoman. Vienna takes so much pride in her work that even when her saloon is targeted by the vengeful and evil posse, she pays off her employees and resolves to stay in the saloon and go down with her ship.
• Murder at Yellowstone City: Edgar Blake and Mickey O'Hare run the saloon in Yellowstone City. They are a pair of actors who started the saloon after their theatre closed down when the Boom Town went bust. They are also a homosexual couple, which is apparently an Open Secret to the rest of the town.
• No Name on the Bullet: Well-dressed Henry Reeger owns the local hotel and saloon, and spends most of the movie as one of the many townsmen terrified that he might be the target of hired assassin John Gant. This causes Reeger to take part in several efforts to run Gant out of town through legal chicanery or mob force (although he remains more sympathetic than some of the others paranoid about Gant). It's never revealed why he thinks Gant is after him, although it's implied that Reeger might be a retired outlaw or saloonkeeper from a less peaceful town, given that Gant seems to know his name (although it isn't Reeger he's after) and twice addresses him as "Dutch", a nickname no one else in town has ever heard Reeger called before, and which makes him more nervous and defensive about Gant.
• Paint Your Wagon: When No-Name City turns into a Boom Town, Rotten Luck Willie starts running the largest saloon, bawdy house and gambling hall in town.
• Stake Land features a post apocalyptic example with a guy running a bar in one of the last towns holding off the vampires and discussing things about the local threats with Mister. While his actual ownership of the place isn't confirmed, given how people and jobs are stretched thinner, its implied.
• Tombstone: Milt is the owner and operator of the saloon where the Earp brothers set up their card game. He really only has one scene and doesn't do much; he's mostly memorable for not believing Wyatt when he introduces himself.
• Tombstone Rashomon: Saloon keeper Colonel Roderick Hafford laments on how supplying alcohol to violent men is a poor profession for a man like him, and then expounds on how his true passion is ornithology and proudly explains how he has catalogued more than 200 specimens in his personal collection.
• Unforgiven: Skinny decides to put Ned's corpse on display (or was told to by Little Bill), prompting Clint Eastwood to blow him down with a shotgun and deliver one of the best lines of his career: "He should've armed himself, if he's gonna decorate his saloon with my friend."
• Yojimbo and its remakes: The protagonist is helped by the local tavern owner.

• The Great Brain: Will Fitzgerald is a saloon owner in the tie-in novel Papa Married a Mormon, running the local Den of Iniquity but sometimes helping friends and relatives out of jams.
• Louis L'Amour had several, coming in different variants.
  • Many of his salloon owners are bosses of the local outlaws, Wicked Cultured types with a thinly contained air of cruelety, such as John Daniel from the short story Hattan's Castle or Martin Hardcastle in Dark Canyon (although he also has ranching interests).
  • Some are portrayed as influential, bold figures who embody the pioneer spirit, often observing things from the side lines and occasionally assisting the hero at a pivotal moment. One such character is Nita Riordan, who becomes the lover of the titular character in the Kilkenny series, who travels across the west, opening multiple such establishments, alas noted for being luxurious, yet respectable enough.
  • Many stories have saloon owners who are henchmen or associates of the main villain, such as Poker Harris from The Trail to Seven Pines and Tielhet from The Rustlers of West Fork, both of them strong-willed, but shady figures who set up saloon/trading posts in the middle of nowhere which whole towns (a midsized one in Tielhet's case, and a handful of buildings in Harris's) arose from, catering largely to outlaws.
• Much Ado About Grubstake: Everdene, the Dude Magnet owner of the hotel and saloon, can "lift a keg of beer over her head, break up a fight between belligerent drunks, and outdraw every man in town[.]" She also cared for Arley and taught her how to read when her mother died in childbirth and the Schoolmarm left town and throws out paying customers whenever they harass Arley.
• Tales of the Eerie Saloon: The titular Eerie Saloon is owned by Shamus O'Toole, an Irish man who created a gender-changing potion in his youth.
• A Tree Grows in Brooklyn: Mr. McGarrity owns the saloon where Johnny Nolan indulges his alcoholism. He's a Jaded Washout type with rotten kids (he wanted a "refined" family and it's specifically mentioned that he hoped his children would be ashamed of him for owning a saloon; instead, they're proud) and a wife who fits the typical female mold of this character and cheats on him with the patrons. To combat the disappointment of all this, he begins to live vicariously through Johnny, listening to his stories about his wife and children and pretending they're his own, and even tries ineffectually to get in with Katie after Johnny dies.
• Undead on Arrival: Nunez runs the local bar in the zombie-surrounded town, making makeshift whiskey and trying to maintain friendly ties to the local big wigs.

• Deadwood: Al Swearengen is the unscrupulous proprietor of the Gem Saloon, a place where he makes many deals, often of the illegal kind. In season 2, Swearengen gets a rival in the form of Cyrus "Cy" Tolliver, the owner of the upscale Bella Union saloon. Ruthless and with a veneer of class and polish, Cy soon proves that while he may lack his rival's skill in cunning duplicity he makes it up in ambition.
• Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman: Hank is the owner of the town saloon. He is mostly a Jerkass, but has some Pet the Dog moments.
• Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: Quark is a futuristic version, with synthehol for booze and holosuites instead of prostitutes.
• The Star Wars Holiday Special: The saloon owner of the cantina on Tatooine sees her establishment get shut down by the Empire. A nice but gruff character, she treats all her customers to one last round on the house before singing a farewell song.

• Fallout:
  • Fallout 2: Lou and Becky are the Pub Owners in Redding and The Den. Compared to their competition, they are tough yet honest. Lou actually Lampshades you on how the hooker you just bought out is merely using the money to buy more jet. However, the rest are usually much less honest and honorable.
  • Fallout 3:
    • Colin Moriarty is the Irish owner of Megaton's main saloon. He lets his browbeaten ghoul debt-slave Gob serve the drinks, forces his worker Nova to prostitute herself to customers, and has the connections and blackmail material to rival Sheriff Simms as Megaton's boss. He's part of the main questline, so players will have to either bribe him (or break into his files) for information on where to go next, though he'll also offer you payment if you go kill his former worker Silver, since she ran out on him. Many players enjoy making the world a better place by killing Moriarty, so that Gob takes over the bar, Nova stops selling herself, and Silver starts a new life in peace.
    • Trudy of the Prospector's Saloon in Goodsprings is the nice kind. She is willing to help form a militia when the Powder Gangers came knocking, though you have to sweet-talk her first.