Palo Verde Lounge owner Chuck Marthaler remembered

Chuck Marthaler never met a misfit he didn’t like.

For decades, the beloved owner of Tempe’s Palo Verde Lounge embraced outsiders, artists, musicians and bikers alike at the infamous dive bar with the gusto of what former employee Angela RoseRed described as “the best older brother ever.”

“Chuck accepted everybody,” RoseRed says. “He was extremely smart and a great businessman, but definitely stood for the misunderstood.”

Marthaler was a constant presence at the Palo Verde Lounge for 32 years, first as a patron, then as an employee and eventually as the bar’s owner. Nearly every night, you’d find him inside the gloriously filthy and bedraggled dive known as the Dirty Verde, pouring its infamous pickle shots behind the well-worn bar or shooting the shit with regulars.

The Palo Verde was Tempe’s oldest dive and wasn’t patronized as much as it was experienced. The bunker-like bar was varying degrees of skeevy, ramshackle and unapologetically profane, boasting graffiti on every surface, questionable odors and a smoking patio that could be classified as a bio-hazard zone.

Overseeing this boozy maelstrom of dive-bar indulgences was Marthaler, who cultivated its arty vibes while keeping things weird and fostering a feeling of community among its patrons after he bought the place in 2005. The Palo Verde was one of Marthaler’s major joys in life, says ex-wife Joann Dubecky,

“It was his dream to own that bar,” Dubecky says.

The PV was such a passion project for Marthaler that he continued running the bar after being diagnosed with cancer in 2023. The illness took its toll, causing him to step away last year.

Marthaler died on Aug. 18 at his home in Tempe. He was 53 and left behind his wife, Jennifer Smith; son Charlie V. Marthaler; mother Sandra K. Gralnek; sister Jennifer Marthaler; and a legion of friends and patrons.

The loss was seismic for those who knew him, though not unexpected.

Tributes to the late Palo Verde owner flooded social media following his death. Regulars shared photos and memories. The Tempe History Museum thanked him for his decades-long stewardship of the city’s “oldest and most interesting bar.” Others, like former bartender Glenda Cota, touched on Chuck Marthaler’s influence.

“I really hope he understood the magnitude of what he meant, and what he did for such a huge community of outcasts, musicians, hooligans, alternative folks, daytime drinkers, new people in town looking to make friends and lost folks,” Cota wrote on Facebook.

Ashliegh Garcia, who bartended at the PV for the last three years, told New Times earlier this year that Chuck Marthaler helped turn the bar into a Tempe institution and community gathering spot.

“It’s always been special. It spans generations and lots of different people. I think that this building is important because people have had a lot of memories here,” she told New Times. “People have spent the worst days of their lives here, but people have also had best days of their lives here.”

Jennifer Marthaler says that distinction mattered to her brother.

“For Chuck, the bar wasn’t that dilapidated building,” she says. “The bar was the people.”

‘He had such a huge, kind heart ‘

Chuck Marthaler had a soft spot for outsiders long before he came to Arizona. Born in Minnesota in 1972, he was something of an outcast himself growing up in the affluent suburb of Minnetonka.

Childhood friend Tracie Borchard recalls how she and Chuck, being from lower-middle-class families, stood out from their more privileged classmates. His intelligence also didn’t help, she says.

“We just weren’t rich kids,” Borchard says. “And I don’t want to say he was a nerd, but Chuck had glasses and he was really smart. His intellect was higher than the rest of the idiots we went to school with. The things he observed and knew was insane.”

Jennifer Marthaler says her brother loved figuring things out. He built forts out of scrap lumber and whipped through algebra problems.

“His mind never stopped,” she says. “Honestly, he’d always try to think of ways to outsmart the system.”

Borchard remembers how other kids looked up to him.

“He had such a huge, kind heart,” she says. “If there was somebody hurting or feeling like an outcast, he took them under his wing. He had a presence about him at a young age, which left lasting impressions on myself and many others.”

‘He was meant for the Palo’

By 1990, Chuck Marthaler’s mother moved their family to Phoenix. It took a few more years to find a place where he fit in.

Procrastination kept him from completing Arizona State University’s Civil Engineering Program. Some jobs at local banks didn’t last due to his penchant for tardiness. And he wound up getting grief over his long hair and tattoos while working tech support for Choice Hotels.

Jennifer Marthaler says her brother always chafed at following other people’s rules. The habit dated back to his childhood, when their military-minded father tried keeping him in line.

“Because our dad was so strict, he tried to put Chuck in a box,” Jennifer says. “And you didn’t do that with him.”

When Chuck Marthaler discovered Palo Verde Lounge in the early ’90s, its anything-goes atmosphere was welcoming, even if his first visit was a little foul.

How and when he first encountered the bar is as cloudy as the cigarette smoke-filled interior of PV in those days. Depending on who you ask, he either snuck inside to play pool with friends while underage, or paid a visit after buying a six-pack from the neighboring liquor store.

Regardless, Chuck Marthaler’s introduction to the Palo Verde was an olfactory experience.

“I pulled that door open, and this big cloud of smoke comes out,” Chuck Marthaler told New Times. “And despite all that smoke, all I could really smell was urine.”

It didn’t keep the PV from becoming his new favorite hangout. Jennifer Marthaler says her brother quickly felt comfortable there.

“He was meant for that bar. He was meant for the Palo,” she says. “He just connected with it and the people. He felt at home there.”

The Palo Verde became a regular lunch-hour stop for Chuck Marthaler. In 1998, he became a doorman. He kept climbing the urine-soaked ladder, working as a barback and later as a bartender.

By 2005, he took over the PV after then-owner Eddie Eng sold him the business. Dubecky, who also worked at the bar and was married to Marthaler by then, says Eng made her ex-husband a deal.

“I think he was ready to sell the bar, so Chuck got it,” Dubecky says.

Charlie Marthaler, Chuck’s son, says his father’s love of the PV is what made him take the dive.

“I remember him telling me, he wanted the bar because he loved the atmosphere (and) he loved the people,” Charlie Marthaler says. “He’d go there so often, eventually he was like, ‘I’d like to have these people as my own people.’”

And his dad kept things at the largely the same after taking over.

“What was I gonna do? Change it to Chuck’s Place? I just wanted everything to stay status quo,” he told New Times in 2021. “The name has a reputation.”

‘Chuck made the Palo feel like a home’

Dubecky says one thing her ex-husband changed at the Palo Verde was opening its doors to everyone.

“It didn’t matter if you walked in with a shirt and tie or were covered in tattoos, anybody was welcome,” Dubecky says. “Chuck was an exceptional person as far as that goes.”

RoseRed agrees. She began visiting the PV shortly after the sale. Within a few months, she was hired on as a barback and bartender, even if her service industry resume was thin.

“To be honest, I didn’t have a ton of bartending experience,” RoseRed says. “He hired me and took a chance on me. And I think that that kind of sums up Chuck.”

Chuck Marthaler had a similar open-door policy on bands playing the PV, allowing rock, punk and metal act to play the bar.

“He was always down for anybody’s band to play,” RoseRed says. “And he was always very generous. He tried to take care of everyone that played. If you didn’t always have cash, he would still try to throw you a beer.”

His generosity went beyond musicians and employees. Kaily Coleman, a longtime PV regular, described the bar as safe space of sorts in a recent Facebook post paying tribute to Chuck Marthaler.

“Chuck made the Palo feel like a home away from the one you either didn’t have or didn’t wanna go back to,” Coleman wrote.

RoseRed says that also includes the PV’s lapsed patrons or former employees, who Chuck Marthaler always considered to be “part of the bar’s family.”

Case in point: He’d keep stockings for former bartenders, including one belonging to RoseRed that remained years after she stopped working.

“He was a very sentimental person,” RoseRed says. “Once you worked there, you were always a part of the bar.”

Marthaler also had a sense of humor when it came his patrons and their drunken antics.

Lauren Cusimano, a former PV regular and onetime food editor for New Times, recalls one night when she was drunk and somehow wound up bartending after Marthaler briefly stepped out.

Cusimano says she was fumbling around with bottles behind the bar when Marthaler returned and relieved her of duty.

“He was like, ‘Yeah, I’m back. Go sit down,’” Cusimano says. “Nobody really wanted you to bartend.”

Keeping a ramshackle dive like Palo Verde running required more than drafting regulars as bartenders. James Peter, a longtime regular and former bartender, says PV employees often had to step up and conduct impromptu repairs.

“There were times when something needed to be done or it wasn’t going to get fixed unless someone stood up and took care of it,” he says.

RoseRed recalls the PV’s bartenders having to buy bags of ice before their shifts when the bar’s ice machine wasn’t working. She says he was unapologetic about how he ran things.

“Chuck always made it somehow work,” RoseRed says. “Something would happen. There would be, I don’t know, a flood or something happened and he just figured it out.”

Peter says Chuck Marthaler was also just unapologetic, period.

“Chuck would never apologize for shit. But if he pissed you off and he knew it, you’d get a bottle of liquor with your name on it,” Peter says. “That was his way of saying sorry.”

Marthaler also refused to give up on the place. After the COVID-19 pandemic temporarily shuttered the Palo Verde in 2020, friends and regulars rallied staged fundraisers, while Chuck Marthaler did alcohol delivers to help keep the bar afloat.

“Closing wasn’t an option,” RoseRed says. “Just keeping it together was the biggest thing.”

Jennifer Marthaler says closing would’ve been devastating to her brother.

“He would’ve felt like a failure,” she says. “Not just as a businessman, but a failure for the community because there’s so many connections there.”

Dubecky says her ex-husband knew how important the Palo Verde was to people.

“He was a pillar of the community. You wouldn’t think that tiny bar would be considered a pillar of the community, but it was.”

‘He’s someone that I’ll never forget.’

Chuck Marthaler was so devoted to the Palo Verde Lounge that cancer didn’t keep him from running the bar after he was diagnosed in 2023. After his health began faltering, his mother, Sandra Gralnek, occasionally drove him to the bar following doctor’s visits so he could handle business.

Jennifer Marthaler says her brother was constantly fatigued, but would perk up while around his regulars.

“He would always feel the need to connect with the people,” she says. “I think that was his real medicine.”

When his condition worsened, his family considered the idea of selling the PV. Marthaler wouldn’t hear of it.

“It was so much a part of him that he couldn’t imagine selling it because he felt like he’d be selling himself,” Jennifer says.

Eventually, Chuck Marthaler’s health situation caused him to step back from operating his bar.

Employees kept Palo Verde going until his death. Garcia, who took over day-to-day operations of the bar in his absence, told New Times in May they were trying to “keep things together for their fearless leader.”

Five days later, the bar closed on Aug. 23. Many regulars gathered at the bar on its final night to raise a toast to Marthaler and his legacy.

What happens next with the business and its assets is murky.

Dozens of PV regulars and former employees gathered with members of Chuck Marthaler’s family at Tempe’s Yucca Tap Room on Sunday to celebrate his life and legacy.

The gathering saw tributes being paid to the late bar owner by those who knew him. Answers about what will happen with Palo Verde’s future were harder to come by.

Jennifer Marthaler told New Times that issues with probate and settling her brother’s estate have complicated ownership of the bar and its assets. She declined to comment further.

RoseRed hopes the Palo Verde will somehow survive under new ownership, but admits that something substantial was lost after Chuck Marthaler’s death.

“Even if somebody keeps it going, which I hope somebody does, it’s going to be different,” she says.

Like the PV’s other regulars, she’s just holding onto memories of the bar and its owner.

“He just looked out for all of us,” she says. “He was just someone that I’ll never forget.”