Venue also becoming popular for night-time entertainment
Published in the Oct. 16, 2013 issue of Morgan Hill Life
By Marty Cheek
Photo by Marty Cheek
Adolfo Sanchez, and his girlfriend Diana Welch in front of the downtown eatery that is becoming a downtown favorite.
Morgan Hill has its own version of “Cheers,” the Boston bar made famous in a classic TV show. Champs Bar and Grill has grown into a favorite watering hole for local South Valley residents looking for a relaxing place where people fast become friends. The venue is also growing in popularity for providing night-time music entertainment ranging from reggae to DJ dance tunes.
Champs owner Adolfo Sanchez tried serving gourmet food when he opened three years ago but that business model didn’t work for him. With a sly smile, he admits that patrons don’t come for the cuisine – he gave up on gourmet and his menu now offers standard American fare of burgers and appetizers. Instead, he said people come to have a beverage at the bar while watching a sports game on the big-screen TVs. They come to wind down with friends after work.
“It’s good food, it’s clean food, but nothing fancy,” Sanchez said. “Sometimes I get a whole soccer team come in and I tell them, ‘I have only one cook. If you want to be in and out in an hour, I can’t do it.’ So I suggest another restaurant that can handle that. I just don’t know the restaurant business. That’s just not my forte.”
Sanchez often encourages patrons to order food from nearby downtown restaurants and have it delivered to Champs. The patrons can then enjoy it with a brew from the bar. A Jay’s Cheese Steaks regularly brings its sandwiches to Champs.
“A Jay’s is wonderful for us. I have a stack of their menus and we can call in the order and they’ll deliver it to us,” he said. “If I can’t fill your niche, bring whatever you want. If you want to come in and watch a game and have a beer and order a pizza, bring it. My niche here is: you can come in and watch a ballgame and have a great time with music and enjoy yourself and dance and feel safe.”
With the eclectic choices in music it offers, Champs has evolved into a popular nighttime entertainment spot in downtown Morgan Hill. Various evenings offer D.J. dance music, reggae and pop tunes from the 1980s. The crowd is eclectic, too. “The ‘80s music crowd you usually get are the 40s and over,” Sanchez said. “But when you get into reggae, you get the whole gamut because reggae touches everyone. It’s really amazing.”
Sanchez’s girlfriend Diana Welch takes care of finding new talent and booking performers. Champs seeks talent from everywhere, but Welch especially likes to show-off local musicians. “Just Chill,” a band made up of boys from local high schools, is especially popular with patrons. “Every time they played here, they’d bring down the house. It was just wild,” Sanchez said.
Sanchez admits with a laugh that, unlike the bar in the show “Cheers,” he doesn’t necessarily know everyone’s name. But he and his staff make it a point to make everyone feel like good friends and become regulars. “It is amazing,” he said. “I just sit down in my little spot on the weekends and people come in and you get to know them. It’s nice.”
Location: 17330 Monterey Road
Hours: Monday – Wednesday 4 – 10:30 p.m.,
Thursday – Saturday 4 p.m. – 1:30 a.m., Sunday open at 10 a.m.
Contact: (408) 465-4199, or visit Facebook
