The Bank Bar & Lounge is a historical site in Downtown Gainesville, Florida.
This brick building housed the first financial institution in Gainesville and only the third bank in Florida. Col. Henry Forest Dutton, a Union Army veteran from Vermont, came to Gainesville in 1873 during the reconstruction period. In the years following the War Between the States, the Vermont native settled in the South, first in South Carolina and then in Gainesville. In 1877, he established the H.F. Dutton mercantile company specializing in cotton and phosphate.
Later, he and his partners built the Dutton Bank on West Liberty Street.
The Dutton building is still located on the northeast corner of the intersection of West University Avenue and West 1st Street, right in the heart of downtown Gainesville. Dutton’s former office is now known as the President’s Room, and it is one of the many cool features, as well as having two enormous, exposed brick walls and tall stools surrounding tables and facing a bar with an illuminated surface, which overall, gives it a rustic feel. The building has a great history and ambiance that would make ANYONE feel great.
The name, The Bank Bar and Lounge, as Co-owner Rich Pusateri explained, that “Because of the history of the building, [the name was kept].”
