History

The Sawtooth Club is located in an iconic brick structure, built sometime in the 1920s as a restaurant & bar called, interestingly enough, The Sawtooth Club. This location has had a restaurant and/or bar operating continually ever since, longer, we think, than just about anywhere else in town. Ernest Hemmingway, among other luminaries over the years, was a regular during the wild and wooly days when the place was a casino. At various times a bar, pizza joint, gambling hall and steakhouse, this great old building has been a focal point of Ketchum life from day one.

The Sawtooth, in its current incarnation, was opened in 1987 by Tom Nickel, who still owns it today. The original name was reclaimed and the place was an immediate hit. The mesquite wood grill was the first of it’s kind in Idaho and remains a signature element. The building has experienced two structure fires over the years, but The Sawtooth has always come back bigger and better than before. As it exists today, “The Tooth” has been a mainstay in Ketchum’s downtown scene for more than 22 years and is now more popular than ever.