Bell Bar: It's back from the dead, complete with cheap pints, doughnuts, sloe gin and (maybe) nurses

The Bell: No graffiti so far

The hairy guy's report:

The website for the local band Drift Lifted talks about "gritty, beer-caked bars" and "graffiti’d bathrooms." But the bar where we found the band's vocalist one afternoon wasn't gritty or beer-caked at all and was sorely lacking in bathroom graffiti.

"It's my parents' bar, not mine," he explained.

The bar is the Bell, a classic corner bar with big windows looking out over Columbus and Lincoln. It recently rose from the dead after closing abruptly Dec. 31. Austin Woods, the rock singer, tends bar there (but doesn't sing) during the day.

A neighbor recently reminisced to us that the Bell, which had been in business since at least just after Prohibition, had long been a hangout for her uncles. "I'm sure all their ghosts are still in the same seats," she said.

We sensed no ghosts but we did sense a good bar that never should have closed, if only briefly. 

Everything old rings true again at the Bell Bar

Co-owner Gina Woods, with bell behind her

Doc's report:

When I was a student and professor in Ann Arbor in the '70s, the Village Bell and Pretzel Bell -- or “V-Bell” and “P-Bell” -- were the places to hang out: the V-Bell for faculty, the P-Bell for students.

Both have since closed or moved, but there is something about the clear, loud, reassuring dong of a bell that beckons everyone of good will. “We have heard the chimes at midnight,” so to speak (Henry IV, Part II). Wikipedia tells us about Bell Bar, a hamlet in  Hertfordshire, England, named after the ancient Bell Inn, with its petrol station, a few garden centres, a restaurant and, of course, a pub.

And so I was as happy as anyone when the Bell Bar at Lincoln and Columbus re-opened under new owners after a brief (six months and five days) hiatus. I cherish the past more with each passing year, and had known the previous owners, the Borkowskis, through a mutual friend.