By JT Marshall/CKOM News Staff

Floor safe found during Bonanza teardown

Apr 28, 2017 | 7:34 AM

Ryan Schwab hopes to cash in on a 40-year-old floor safe he found Wednesday while tearing down the Bonanza Steakhouse.
 
“If you see me here tomorrow, it didn’t have $10 million in it,” joked the contractor with ZCT Contracting, who’s tasked with taking down the remains of the restaurant on Eighth Street East.
 
“The chances something will be in it are super slim.”
 
Schwab spent $400 digging it out.
 
“There will never be another Bonanza in Saskatoon with that safe in it, guaranteed,” he joked.
 
Schwab said he hopes to eventually put the safe to use.
 
“I want to put it as a floor safe in my garage if I can get it opened, I love restoring old stuff.”
 
Bonanza owner Gary Baba said the safe had been in the floor of an office that was converted to the ladies’ washroom. 
 
“It was used for extra coins like quarters and loonies, they were in all the Bonanza’s,” he said. “I would say 100 percent nothing is in it.”
 
Baba owned the restaurant for 21 years and knew the safe was there, but never tried to open it.
 
“We could never get into it because we’d have to unseal it,” he said. “I never thought anybody would jackhammer it up to get it.”
 
Bonanza was destroyed by fire on Feb. 21.
 

jmarshall@rawlco.com

On Twitter: @JTMarshallCKOM