The Mill Tavern Up for Sale

The Mill Tavern, a downtown staple for nearly seven decades, is now up for sale.

According to real estate agent Dave Hackiewicz, the family of Alice Sutcliff placed the tavern and liquor store at 310 N. River Street on the market earlier this week. Sutcliff ran The Mill for 53 years before her death on May 25, and her parents owned and operated it for years before that.

The Mill has been closed since shortly after Sutcliff’s death, and her son Tim Webster explained that her family simply doesn’t have time to continue operating it.

“My brothers and I all have careers at this point, and do not have the time to continue the tradition, wish we did,” Webster wrote in an email on Thursday.

Webster said the family is not seeking any particular type of buyer.

The Mill Tavern, liquor store, and the two apartments above it are all for sale together, Hackiewicz said. The bar is about 1,000 square feet, he said, and can fit 85 patrons inside. The property comes with a 57-space parking lot.

The family is asking for $319,000, Hackiewicz said.

Sutcliff’s parents, Alex and Sophie Pocus, bought the tavern in 1944, and lived directly above it for years. Sutcliff took the tavern over in 1958, and ran it through boom times and downturns. She bought the building in 1984, according to Aurora Township records.

The adjacent liquor store has been “The Home of the Lucky Winners” since the early 1980s, when they added an Illinois lottery machine. Sales from the store have helped The Mill pay its bills after the closing of many Montgomery-area factories (and the resulting loss of clientele) in recent years, Sutcliff had said.

“We all have fond memories of The Mill, spent many hours involved during our tenure there, and those memories will stay with us forever,” Webster wrote.