Sneak peek as Dubber's Sports Bar opens in Oldtown Salinas.

Old is new again.

Dubber's Sports Bar & Grill opened officially today at 172 Main St. in the former Salinas Fish House, with as much Salinas history flowing as quality draft beers. 

The place starts with its point man and co-owner Justin Saunders.

While he's been managing bars and night spots in New York for the last decade or so, his family has owned the building for decades, plural. 

He and a small tribe of helping hands have spent months making a Herculean push to—among other things—cleanse and reappoint the kitchen, install a handmade bar and dig through four layers of floor to the original patchwork of mosaic and stone. (See slide show, at top right.)

"I've been the day laborer—for months," he says. "Blasting classic rock, KPIG."

Surprises like a water line that was actually an illegally repurposed gas line helped push Justin to ultimately swear off any estimated open dates.

His do-it-all dad, John Saunders, has been his right hand man, leaving Justin's younger brother Jesse to man his own plus-sized to-do list at the family vineyard in Carmel Valley. Youngest brother Dillon, meanwhile, is training to start Oldtown bar tending any shift now.  

Dubber's marks a homecoming of sorts for pops, who ran the legendary Brass Rail across the street for years, and whose family has been primary Oldtown property holders for two generations.

If it feels a little like a reunion that started with the soft opening late last week, that's not the popular fresh-squeezed screwdrivers talking. 

"A lot of farmers and tradesmen are coming in," Justin says with a smile, "saying they haven't seen each other in a while."

So much anticipation built up during delays that the soft opening has been intense.

Justin says he blew through seven kegs of Firestone 805 in less than seven days. 

"We've been slammed just serving drinks," Justin says. 

That fits with the expectations his dad wants to set, saying, "We're a bar first, restaurant second." 

The bar part stars a big range of beers, with Hoegarden and 805 proving most popular.

The draft lineup, which also includes Stella, Guiness, Long Board, Coors Light, Speakeasy Prohibition Ale—runs $4-$6 a pint.

The food part is basic as promised—and delayed until next week as a point-of-sale system is installed and operational wrinkles are ironed out—starting with the family's time-honored after burner chili ($4), southern-style mac-and-cheese ($6), a wedge ($6) and artichoke ($9) on the appetizer list, backed by classic pub sandwiches like the skirt steak ($15), Indiana pork loin ($10) and Salinas Valley cheesesteak ($12).

There are also bacon cheeseburgers ($11), patty melts ($9) and dogs like the Chicago ($7), BLT ($7) and Hog ($7), which comes wrapped with bacon and piled with house chili, cheese and onions.

"Nothing is gonna have a calorie count," John says. 

Hours to start are 11am-10pm or 11pm Sunday through Wednesday, until 1am Thursday through Saturday. 

The biggest addition among them is Patria at 228 Main St., as hot a restaurant to hit Salinas Valley since some guy named Steinbeck was still tipping them back. 

Patria chef/co-owner Paolo Kautz actually made a crucial, if spontaneous, contribution to a simple staple.

He poked his head in while the Dubber's team was struggling to master a quality potato chip. 

"He comes in and sees us and shakes his head," John Saunders says with obvious glee. "He said, 'I don't have time to give you a lesson!' Then he said, 'F**k it. Set it to 360 degrees. 360. Not 350. Not 370.'" 

The lesson continued from there, including finer points on how to swim the chips in the oil, and a hot and salty signature is in place. 

John doesn't plan on dusting off his old boxing skills to play bouncer as he did in Carmel Valley when The Running Iron was called the Stirrup Cup, as local public safety have already taken to the place.

"Even the mayor [Joe Gunter] is an old cop. He used to patrol me across the street [at Brass Rail]," John says. "We've had a good police presence so we're not worried about the knuckleheads."

As history—and the Saunders family—finds new relevance in Oldtown, the name, like the architecture and brass tacks approach, honors past family.

Dubber's was the nickname given Justin's grandpa, whose picture in a cockpit appears on the wall next to the handmade bar.

It'll be a name Oldtown knows for a long while.

That's how history works.