Welcome to Our Restaurant
Looking for a place that offers great food and fun for the whole family? The Mug Restaurant is just the place!
Our budget conscious menu offers something for the whole family. We have homemade pizza, fresh burgers, delicious salads, lunch & dinner specials, NY Sirloin, and a kids menu. We now have a full-service bar, and offer 11 beers on draught plus a wide selection of bottled beer.
Sit in our cozy pub room and enjoy your meal by our stone fireplace and big screen TV. Let the kids hang out in our game room that features 2 pool tables, video games and a giant chalkboard for the young artist. The game room is an ideal place for birthday parties and group functions.
For the snowmobile enthusiast, we are located just 100 yards right off the Ashland/Meredith trail – look for our signs. We are conveniently located on Rts 3/25 between Lake Winnipesaukee and Squam Lake.
50 YEARS OF MUG HISTORY!
The Mug first opened in 1968 but there is some history to the site prior to The Mug opening its’ doors. In the 1930’s the site where The Mug is now was a cow pasture. The Nickles family owned this land along with the property across the street where their home and barn were located. They had a large farm and used this property for their cows to graze. They also owned the local general store in Center Harbor. Ralph Smith married the Nickles daughter and he took over the farm. Eventually the family sold part of their land to A.J. Paquette. A.J. was a builder at that time and was working on building some of the roads in town. He needed gravel for the roads and started digging pits on his new land. He went quite deep with these pits and they started filling up with water. The beavers moved in and quickly became wetlands. The property was left alone for many years until Stewart (A.J’s son) and his friend David Piper decided they really needed a place to drink! David was a builder, so they came up with the brilliant idea to fill in the wetlands and build a restaurant.
A.J. and his wife helped their son run the new restaurant. The kitchen consisted of a small grill and pizza oven. Anatole aka Annie (A.J’s other son) was in a band and rehearsed every Wednesday at The Mug which drew many customers. Bob Hormell became the manager after graduating from Belknap College, and in 1972 bought The Mug along with is brother George and brother-in-law Paul Kiah.
In 1996 Paul and Amy bought The Mug from Joe Droukas and in July of that year the restaurant burned to the ground. The fire was started by the big screen television in the front corner. The Center Harbor selectman were an integral part in helping us rebuild the restaurant in this location, as building setbacks have changed through out the years. Several of our contractors put their current jobs on hold so we could rebuild quickly. It took a record 100 days!
Here we are today, 22 years from the rebuild and 50 years from the doors first opening!
Thanks to all our patrons for making this happen.
