The co-owners of The Wheel on National Road in Wheeling – located in the former TJ's Sports Garden site – celebrated an official ribbon cutting ceremony on Monday with the Wheeling Area Chamber of Commerce. From left are co-owners Dave Pilarksi, Gee Lofstead and Mark Bardwil. (Photo by Eric Ayres)

WHEELING – The Wheel has been operating in the former TJ’s Sports Garden location in Wheeling since last fall, but the new restaurant and sports bar launched into 2026 in a big way with an official ribbon cutting ceremony Monday.

The Wheeling Area Chamber of Commerce and city officials gathered at The Wheel on National Road in Woodsdale on Monday afternoon to officially welcome the new establishment to the business community.

“On Sept. 29, we had a soft opening,” said Mark Bardwil, who is co-owner along with Gee Lofstead and Dave Pilarski. “We did not purchase the building, we basically took over the business. The owners are Action Gaming Group. They bought the building from T.J., but did not want to run the restaurant. That’s how we found out about it.”

Former owner T.J. Radevski retired at the end of July last year after operating TJ’s Sports Garden at the location for 35 years.

The three Linsly School grads who took over the restaurant went in different directions after graduating with the Class of 86. Bardwil lived in Texas before moving to Tacoma, Washington, where he resides now and works as a business lawyer. Lofstead is also a lawyer who still lives in the Wheeling area. Lofstead and Pilarski both grew up in the restaurant business. Pilarski graduated from Penn State, where he studied restaurant and hotel management before opening a catering business in Annapolis, Maryland.

“We all scattered and went to different parts of the country,” Bardwil said, noting that the three friends always wanted to work on a project together.

“When we found out about the TJ’s opportunity, it all came together,” Bardwil said, noting that it was not only an opportunity to spend time closer to family but also a chance to launch the kind of joint venture the trio had been eyeing. “It’s just got the infrastructure. It needed some updating. Thirty-five years for a bar is a great run, but we thought we could dress it up, change the theme, bring some other folks in and have a more diverse crowd.”

They made a significant investment in the facility. Although the floor plan remains the same as TJ’s, there are new tables, lighting, flooring, 12 new televisions, frozen drink machines and more updates that are still unfolding. The sports trading cards that were inside the bar top and table tops are gone, but the iconic mural outside is still there.

“It’s crumbling,” Bardwil said of the mural. “There’s a lot of talk about what to do with it. It’s there for right now, and we know it means a lot to a lot of people.”

They will probably poll patrons to ask what the public would like to see done with the exterior, but regardless, it needs to be repaired in the future, Bardwil noted.

The Wheel kept some of TJ’s signature dishes like the famous coleslaw, the Big T, Slim Jim, fudge cake and other fan favorites. But a lot of menu items are new.

“All of our food is fresh,” Bardwil said. “Our french fries are delicious. “We really changed some things on the menu. We’re going to do seasonal specials.”

A new commercial smoker has been added to the kitchen, and pork belly tacos, brisket sandwiches and other items will soon be on the menu. A new Maryland crab dip is already a hit, as are some signature salads. Street tacos, creole and other selections promise to make the menu diverse and very unique. They hope to make TJ’s regulars feel at home while welcoming a whole new demographic of new customers, as well.

Most of the staff from TJ’s is still on board.

“We’ve retained almost all of them,” Bardwil said. “Less than a handful didn’t stay on. We hired some new ones. There’s around 40 or so, and some have been here for 20-plus years. It is a great staff. They really helped make it a seamless transition for us. There was a lot of change for them, but they knew a lot about the building that we didn’t know … and they know the regular customers, as well.”

The “86” seen in the logo is not part of The Wheel’s name. It’s a shoutout to the year they all graduated from Linsly. The name came from a nickname for Wheeling when friends that had moved away were meeting up back home for reunions and other gatherings.

“We used to say ‘when are you getting into The Wheel?’,” Bardwil noted.

Now getting to The Wheel has taken on a whole new meaning, and the trio and their staff are eager for customers to take a turn and see what it’s all about. Whether they are patrons who loved TJ’s or if they had never been to TJ’s or The Wheel, they are encouraged to come check it out.

“We encourage everyone to be open minded and give us a try,” Bardwil said. “We really do have something for everybody on the menu.”