The Bit and Spur began as a roadside bar in the 1970s. The Bit and Spur Restaurant and Saloon opened for business in March of 1981. For many years before that, The Bit and Spur served the area well as a Beer Bar and Pool Hall.
The inner dining room held two pool tables; the old bar was in the front room, much smaller than now. Fishing licenses and sandwiches were also available. Springdale was awfully slow and quiet then, in the 1950s, ’60s, and ’70s. There were only a couple of restaurants in town, a few hotels, and lots of Peach, Apple, and Pecan orchards, many of them first planted by the Mormon pioneers, the first white settlers in the area from over 100 years ago. Visitors to Zion National Park, around 2 million people a year in 2010, were measured in the tens of thousands 50 years previous.