If you’ve heard of Bartender Bob Bozic, then you’ve heard the stories.

A 65-year-old former boxer who had been a bartender at the Fanelli Cafe in SoHo since 1990, Mr. Bozic cultivated a following as a rude barman who reads several books a week, keeps season tickets to the opera and tells stories of an improbably novelistic life: He fought Larry Holmes at Madison Square Garden; he tried to rob a bank to pay overdue rent; he married Barack Obama’s former girlfriend. It goes on.

Fanelli’s, as everyone calls it, opened on the corner of Prince and Mercer Streets in 1922. By the late 1970s it had become a gathering place for artists and bohemians. Now it is crowded with shoppers and tourists. Its hanging red neon sign makes it stand out like a lighthouse when SoHo’s shops close at night, which was when regulars would return to see Mr. Bozic, who refused to make cocktails that required effort, hit on people’s girlfriends and poured free drinks for those who answered his trivia questions. “Fanelli’s is what people expect a bar in New York to be like,” Mr. Bozic said, “and I’m what they expect a bartender to be like.”

Fanelli’s may have endured SoHo’s gentrification, but it remains to be seen how it will endure without Mr. Bozic, who worked his final shift Sunday night two weeks ago. Bar-stool soliloquies about the end of an era were common at his farewell party.

“Bob is the most interesting man I’ve ever met,” said Peter Berman, 61. “I come here for Bob.”

“This place will not be Fanelli’s without Bob,” said Linda Lou, 63. “I won’t come back.”