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We have a drink or two, well maybe three
-- Alice Cooper, "Be My Lover," 1971
Affection and nostalgia for the Anchor Bar gush onto social media Monday in response to word of its upcoming ownership change. Vivid recollections of personal and career touchstones flow like drinks at an open bar.
"Doesn't get more Detroit than the Anchor," tweets Free Press metro editor Maryann Struman, who joined that paper in 2012 after 28 years at The Detroit News. "The Anchor Bar is like no other."
Pulitzer winner Jim Schaefer of the Freep posts on Facebook: "I still recall my first Anchor visit in 1987. I won’t be telling that story in this forum."
Fondness doesn't flow just from journalists. The Anchor, now at 450 W. Fort St., rose to legendary status over six decades of family ownership at four downtown Detroit sites since 1959. Admirers also include generations of sports fans, law enforcers, politicians, burger lovers and dive bar denizens.
This $3.95 paperback from 1978 is a hard-to-find collectible listed at $40 to $45 on Amazon.
Now the original owner's son and grandson, each named Vaughn Derderian, are preparing to close a sale agreement with an entrepreneur who runs Parc restaurant at Campus Martius and other businesses -- as first reported Sunday night by Deadline Detroit editor Allan Lengel.
The new owner speaks of upgrading a bit, while trying to retain the scruffy charm. WDIV anchor Devin Scillian, who joined the station in 1995, urges him to be "careful -- a lot of us worked hard to create those [rough] edges."
The funky bar and its patriarch, the late Leo Derderian, are the focus of an out-of-print 1978 paperback, "The Anchor, Leo & Friends." The author, former Detroit News politics reporter Berl Falbaum (now retired in West Bloomfield after running a PR firm for two decades), describes the no-pretense appeal:
The Anchor is different. It has no caste system. Governors sit alongside printers. Mayors argue politics with reporters while pressmen, gamblers, priests, secretaries, mailmen and others add to the camaraderie that is part of the Anchor's magnetism
Here's what past and present patrons say as they recall the camaraderie, the magnetism and the stories they could tell:
This 2012 logo design is on the bar's Facebook page, but nowhere else.
♦ I'll pay you Friday: Started going there when I was an apprentice. Then it moved to two different locations. . . . I liked that you could go in and run a tab, then cash your check there on Friday and pay it back. -- Thomas Grenfell, Warren
♦ No newspaper war zone: End of an era. I love that in the early '80s, when The News and Freep were in a huge battle for readers, someone carved in one of The News' elevators: "The Anchor is a DMZ." -- Brad Thompson, Ann Arbor
♦ Kwame Kilpatrick coverage: So many memories. I remember most of them. . . . This was the place to gather nightly with reporters and editors from the Free Press and News after each Kwame Kilpatrick story. -- Ben Schmitt, ex-Freep reporter (1999-2010) now at the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review as an assistant news editor
♦ 'Dizzying weeks' ended here: Other than an outstanding crew in the control room and in the studio, the only redeeming factor of working overnights for two months at WDIV-TV was the weekly Friday morning post-show trip to this place for a knife-and-fork meal celebrating the end of the dizzying week. -- Matt Friedman, PR agency co-owner and former news producer (1996-98)
Leo Derderian, founder of Detroit's Anchor Bar. pic.twitter.com/xJnVbgqQOo
— Jason Shubnell (@JasonShubnell) July 30, 2018
♦ 'Part of the story:' Places like the Anchor aren't just places, they're part of the story. Their people are family. This is a Detroit powerhouse. -- Julie Altesleben, Detroit News designer
♦ 'I must confess . . .:' It was a wild and crazy place. . . . I must confess I filed more than one story from the pay phone in the back room of the Anchor with a beer in my hand." -- Robert Ankeny of Dearborn, former Detroit News reporter (1969-95) quoted by Crain's
♦ 'An adventure:' I spent many a lunch hour there when I was on the [Detroit News] midnight copy desk. Every night at the Anchor was an adventure. -- Mike Mencotti, Farmington Hills
♦ 'Won't be the same:' I grew up eating (and drinking) here when I was a kid working summers downtown. Hope the Ava Burger stays on the menu! Won't be the same place without a Derderian behind the bar. -- Stephanie Tanguay of Royal Oak, clinical education specialist
♦ Sports, great food, great respect: This was one of my favorite bars to watch sports and the Red Wings championship and eat great food. . . .Vaughn was a great owner and treated everyone with great respect. -- Rick Peters, Belleville retiree
♦ 'We need to do . . .:' We need to do an oral history. -- Bonnie Ford, former Detroit News reporter (1987-94) now at ESPN
♦ 'I danced on a table:' In 1982, when The Detroit News won the Pulitzer Prize, the after-party at the Anchor on Lafayette was raucous and awesome. Only time I ever danced on a table Felt like New Year's Eve in Times Square. I also remember many times walking past the Lafayette Anchor and seeing Leo sitting on a chair up against the wall, chatting with the legendary Msgr. [Clement] Kern.
Lots of memories of about 100 going-away parties in the back room. And that's just remembering the Lafayette years; many great memories at the Fort Street Anchor too. -- Kate DeSmet, former Detroit News reporter
♦ Fancy drinks ahead? Pour gentrification gin cocktails. -- Vickie Elmer, Detroit freelance journalist
♦ 'Memories will live:' This was and always will be the newspaper bar to beat all others. I've been in many over the years, but my days at the Anchor -- especially the original location -- are etched in my memory. . . . The smell on you would immediately let everyone know where you'd been. Immediately. Grease, burgers, smoke permeated the place. . . . The memories will live forever. -- Nancy Hanus of Northville, Metro Parent Publishing marketing and audience development director
At WDIV on Monday evening, Steve Garagiola of WDIV shares recollections and context for why the sale is newsworthy:
