It started with a jar of pennies
Every house has one: the jar on the counter that slowly fills with copper nobody ever spends. Ours got out of hand. Rather than roll them up and haul them to the bank, we decided to put them to work, one penny at a time, until they covered an entire wall.
That wall became the soul of the Common Cents Bar. It catches the low light and glows like the heart of a copper still. Every penny is a little different: bright new ones, deep brown ones and the odd green one that has seen some things.
The bar
Pull up a stool and rest your elbows on the walnut rail. It wraps the whole bar in warmth, and it was made for leaning in: closer to the conversation, closer to your drink, closer to whoever just said something worth hearing.
Under your glass is a slab of dark quartzite with a leathered finish, matte and soft to the touch. Quartzite takes millennia to form, as sandstone is pressed and heated deep in the earth until it becomes nearly unbreakable. We like to think the friendships made across it are built the same way, and we hope they last just as long.
Then there's the copper: the penny wall, the mugs, the glow over everything. We chose it for a simple reason. Everyone looks amazing in warm light. So settle into the black leather, let the evening slow down, and stay a while.
The drinks
Every cocktail on the menu has been made, tweaked and made again until it earned a place on the list. You'll find the classics done right, a few tiki favorites and some house originals. If you don't see what you're after, ask. The bartender likes a challenge.
The name
Common sense says you should spend your pennies. We think it makes more cents to drink in front of them.
A penny for your thoughts
The wall is made of them, so it's only fair we tell their story. Here's a little of what you're drinking in front of.
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What's in a name
"Cent" comes from the Latin centum, meaning "hundred," since it takes a hundred to make a dollar. "Penny" is a nickname borrowed from the British coin. Officially, it's the one-cent piece.
- 1793
Where it started
The cent was one of the very first coins made by the brand-new U.S. Mint. It was pure copper and nearly the size of a half dollar.
- 1857
Downsized
The big copper cent was retired for the small cent we know today, made of copper mixed with nickel.
- 1909
Enter Lincoln
For Abraham Lincoln's 100th birthday, he became the first real person to appear on an everyday U.S. coin. It's still the longest-running coin design in U.S. history.
- 1943
Pennies go to war
Copper was needed for the war effort, so in 1943 pennies were struck in zinc-coated steel. They're silver-colored and stick to a magnet. From 1944 to 1946 they went back to copper, made partly from melted-down brass shell casings from the war.
- 1959
Lincoln, twice
For his 150th birthday, the Lincoln Memorial went on the back. Look closely and you can see Lincoln sitting inside, making the penny the only U.S. coin with the same person on both sides.
- 1982
Copper on the outside
Copper got too expensive, so the penny became 97.5% zinc with a thin copper coat. Older pennies weigh 3.11 grams and newer ones 2.5 grams. Both kinds were made in 1982.
- 2025
The last penny
By the end, each penny cost almost four cents to make. The U.S. Mint struck its last penny for circulation in November 2025. They're still legal tender, and still welcome in the tip jar.
A few more cents' worth
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Out of many, one
Every Lincoln penny carries the words E pluribus unum, Latin for "out of many, one." It's the motto on the Great Seal of the United States, chosen in 1782 to describe thirteen colonies coming together as one nation. We think it fits a wall just as well: thousands of pennies, one wall.
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Looking the other way
Lincoln is the only president on an everyday U.S. coin who faces right.
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Wall math
There are about 13,000 pennies on our wall. That's $130, around 80 pounds of copper and zinc. Stacked up, they'd stand about 65 feet tall, and laid in a line they'd stretch more than 800 feet.
Cheers and welcome.