Iconic Willis Show Bar to reopen in Cass Corridor as cabaret and cocktail bar

Like so many iconic Detroit buildings, the life of the little bar with the curved facade at the corner of Willis and Third streets has echoed its surroundings.

It began as a thriving jazz club, deteriorating over the years to a seedy den of iniquity, then sat vacant for the better part of four decades. Now it's primed to be reborn as an upscale cabaret and cocktail bar under the purview of the rapidly expanding Detroit Optimist Society hospitality group (Wright & Co., the Sugar House, Bad Luck Bar, et al) in partnership with a few Los Angeles-based investors.

“Of that Cass Corridor show bar era of the ‘40s and ‘50s, this is the only building that’s left; it’s kind of the last bastion of that era," said partner Steve Livigni, whose hospitality concepts in greater L.A. include Scopa Italian Roots, the Chestnut Club and Old Lightning.

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Opened in 1949, the Willis Show Bar was a Cass Corridor jazz and live entertainment hot spot that slowly deteriorated with the neighborhood, eventually becoming a hangout of the local working girls and the johns seeking their services. It was padlocked by the county in 1978 during a prostitution crackdown and sat mostly empty ever since. Sometimes it served as a warehouse for Blossoms owners Norman Silk and Dale Morgan, who purchased the building in the early 1980s and operated their florist company out of a former topless shoe-shine parlor adjacent to the bar.

The Willis was poised to be reborn in 2013 as Shag Bar thanks to another California-based investor, but that deal fell apart and Silk called Livigni and his partners — who were already looking for a Detroit property and working with Midtown Inc.'s Sue Mosey — last November.

“At the time, it just didn’t seem like the thing I wanted to do,” Livigni said, but the Shag Bar investor had already secured a liquor license for the space and completed other preliminary work, making it a more enticing opportunity than the average concrete box.

“The day we signed the lease we got an e-mail from Norm saying all the pipes were about to freeze and burst,” Livigni said.

Livigni and his partners called Detroit Optimist Society principal Dave Kwiatkowski, who they'd met on previous trips to the city.

“It was a rocky first 48 hours but Dave came to the rescue,” Livigni recalled.

The faulty pipe fiasco led to the new partnership between DOS and Livigni and his partners, Sean Patrick and Brandon Smith.

As with other DOS properties, Kwiatkowski is overseeing the build-out of the space, which he described as a 3,000-square-foot concrete box covered in popcorn paint when he arrived on the scene.

“We’re following the original photos and layout and building the bar to match,” said Kwiatkowski.The only thing left of the original Willis Show Bar was the curved, Art Moderne-style ceiling, which the partners spent eight weeks painstakingly restoring. The ceiling also dictated the rest of the build-out. The new bar follows the curves of the ceiling and the main stage is located behind the bar, with nearly every seat in the house facing the stage.

The details haven’t been fully worked out yet, but when the Willis debuts in January it will likely be open three to four nights a week with mostly ticketed events or cover at the door. You can bet on live music, DJs, dancers and comedians as part of the mix of the ever-present live entertainment. Music will mostly focus on the era of the Willis’ heyday, featuring jazz, blues and soul, with occasional performances by bigger contemporary talent doing intimate, one-off shows.

Patrick, who moved to Detroit in May, will act as the bar’s managing partner. Patrick is somewhat of a nightclub legend back in L.A., where he first made his name as a DJ before transitioning to nightlife programmer and promoter. Most recently, he was the creative director for Clifton’s, an iconic ‘30s-era cafeteria that reopened in 2015 as a massive entertainment complex featuring a restaurant, multiple bars and a live entertainment venue hosting weekend acts. While running Willis Show Bar, Patrick will also remain as creative consultant for No Name, an anonymous supper club in West Hollywood with a reputation as one of the city’s hardest-to-get reservations.

Like other DOS properties (and those run by Livigni and Patrick in L.A.), you can expect a focus on craft cocktails in the 75-seat bar, though the list won't be as extensive as that found at, say, Kwiatkowski's Sugar House.

"We're not going crazy," Livigni said. "We won't have a massive back bar. We won't have 300 spirits — just nice, delicious drinks."

The team found a '60s-era cocktail menu from the Flame Show Bar, which once stood four blocks east of the Willis, and will be drawing inspiration from it. Think: Singapore Slings and Sidecars, plus bottles of champagne and some limited bar snacks.

“We’re probably going to stick to a very period-correct menu,” Kwiatkowski said.

There's a question perennially charged to outside investors coming to the Motor City: Why Detroit?

“We came to Detroit because we love Detroit and wanted to be a part of it,” Patrick said. “We’re serious music-heads and the history this place has had in that realm is amazing.”

The newly revived Willis Show Bar is the partners' chance to be a part of Detroit's music future, while also paying homage to its past. That's a prospect hard to pass up in any town, but even more so in Motown.

Willis Show Bar

4156 Third, Detroit

willisshowbar.com

Opening January 2018

Contact Mark Kurlyandchik: 313-222-5026 or mkurlyandc@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @mkurlyandchik and Instagram: mkurlyandchik