How do you get into The Secret Cellar?
We have not confirmed it. The Secret Cellar is in the directory because it described as secret, and that is the whole of what we can stand behind about its door.
Drinks of the era
We have not seen this venue’s own list, so what follows is the period rather than the bar: Mary Pickford, El Presidente, and Hotel Nacional Special are all drinks of this era, and each links to its origin and its build.
The building
Documented — The Secret Cellar occupies the Franklin Hotel, a property listed on the National Register of Historic Places under reference number 12000802. The listing is a federal record maintained by the National Park Service, and the nomination document is the primary source for the building’s architectural and social history.
National Register reference 12000802 · NPS nomination document
Where The Secret Cellar sits
The Secret Cellar is in Kent, Ohio, in Portage County, in the Midwest of the United States.
This is currently the only verified hidden bar our directory lists in Kent. If you know another, tell us.
Ohio holds 54 listed venues in this directory. See them all on our Ohio speakeasy guide.
Prohibition in Ohio
Ohio came under national prohibition on 17 January 1920, when the Eighteenth Amendment took effect and the Volstead Act defined an intoxicating beverage as anything above one half of one per cent alcohol — a threshold strict enough to close breweries that had expected to survive.
More on the period in our history of Prohibition in Ohio.
What the newspapers recorded in Ohio
Searching the Library of Congress run of Ohio newspapers for speakeasy, blind pig and bootlegger across 1920 to 1933 returns dated pages anyone can open. These are from Ohio:
- The toiler, February 13, 1920 — read the page at the Library of Congress
- The American issue, June 17, 1921 — read the page at the Library of Congress
- The American issue, December 31, 1920 — read the page at the Library of Congress
- The American issue, November 4, 1921 — read the page at the Library of Congress
Planning a visit
You can reach The Secret Cellar by phone on (330) 678-9463, through its own website, and on X.
The address is 176 E Main St, Kent, OH 44240. Open in Google Maps.
What we have confirmed
For The Secret Cellar we hold street address, telephone number, official website, social accounts, and a listed-building record. We do not yet hold opening hours, a published drinks list, or an online booking link.
It is in the directory because its own name places it below street level and calls it secret and the description in the source data describes it as a speakeasy.
Overture Maps carries this venue; OpenStreetMap has no matching record.
The source data classifies the premises as a bar.