34 – Buffalo Bulletin, Heritage 2019

Bulletin courtesy photo by Jim Gatchell Memorial Museum

This photo of the Central Bar, which would become the Century Club, taken in the in 1950s still hangs in the Century Club. Jim
Gatchell Memorial Museum records indentfy the men as: Bill Gualt, Tony Gubialdi, Gaston Irrigary, Max Hayden, Jean Tristant,
Eugene Petru, Unidentified man, John Larralde, Jean Auzqui, Wilbur Jenkins, Jean Etchemendy, Mons Kartbedt, Unidentified
man and Billy Kilpatrick.

A century
By Mara Abbott
mara@buffalobulletin.com

Each night for 33 years, “Squirm” worked

last call at the Century Club.

of family
Legally, she’s Irma Betts, but her longtime
patrons and fans say the woman who owned the
bar from 1976 to 1978 and continued working
there until 2009 would never respond to that name.
Betts remembers what happened just before
2 a.m. well: “At the end of the night, they got to
take their shirts off. The girls weren’t allowed
“People want to come in and to, but the guys did. They would sing this song
for me with their shirts off and they just thought
see an old Western bar. One it was heaven.”
Buffalo first knew the Century Club as the
of our mottos is ‘The Century Central Bar, though the exact year it opened is
unknown. Through the early 1970s, it operated
Club, it’s where good friends as Klink’s.
meet,’ and that’s still true.” “When I first turned of age it was Klink’s,”
she said. “That was my dad’s hangout way back
— Ryan Money in the ‘40s.”
She said her dad passed away before he could
see her as the bar’s owner.
“I knew where his chair was and I would just
sit there and I always wished we could have
been there together. The first time I went to
Klink’s was when I was underage and I had to
get my dad and bring him home.”
The Century Club moved to its current