Cheers - Cheers Owners

Cheers Owners

Cheers obviously had several owners before Sam, as the bar was opened in 1889. The "Est. 1895" on the bar's sign is a made-up date chosen by Carla for numerological purposes, revealed in the 8th season episode, "The Stork Brings a Crane". In the second episode, "Sam's Women", Coach tells a customer looking for Gus, the owner of Cheers, that Gus was dead and Sam now owned the bar. In a later episode, Gus O'Mally comes back from Arizona for one night and helps run the bar.

The biggest storyline surrounding the ownership of Cheers begins in the fifth season finale, "I Do, Adieu", when Sam and Diane part ways, due to Shelley Long's leaving the regular cast. In addition, Sam leaves on a trip to circumnavigate the Earth. Before he leaves, Sam sells Cheers to the Lillian Corporation. He returns in the sixth season premiere, "Home is the Sailor", having sunk his boat, to find the bar under the new management of Rebecca Howe. He begs for his job back and is hired by Rebecca as a bartender. In the seventh season premiere, "How to Recede in Business", Rebecca is fired and Sam is promoted to manager. Rebecca is allowed to keep a job at Lillian vaguely similar to what she had before, but only after Sam had Rebecca (in absentia) "agree" to a long list of demands that the corporation had for her.

From there Sam occasionally attempted to buy the bar back with schemes that usually involved the wealthy executive Robin Colcord. Sam acquired Cheers again in the eighth season finale, when it was sold back to him for eighty-five cents (it was offered to him for one US dollar, but eighty-five cents was all Sam could come up with on the spot) by the Lillian Corporation, after he alerted the company to Colcord's insider trading. Fired by the corporation because of her silence on the issue, Rebecca is hired by Sam as a hostess/office manager.