It’s going to be lost history.” Rough and tumble “Business was starting to pick up we had a good future ahead of us,” he says. But after 60 years of beer and booze, Smokey’s is losing its lease: The downtown fixture will close forever on April 15. Smokey’s brands itself as Asheville’s oldest continuously operating bar - “same location, same name, same everything” since the 1950s, Masters says. “After 32 years, it’s going to be hard to come back downtown,” says Masters, his voice shaking. The air is thick with decades of brews, whiskey and cigars - memories caught in cracks of aging wood. Traipsing back inside, he takes a seat on a black swivel stool and gazes down the musty hall. Gene Masters stands in the doorway of Smokey’s Tavern, leaning over the barricaded sidewalk that’s blanketed with concrete dust - remains of the former BB&T garage next door.