Even with football back on a lot of our favorite places in Ann Arbor are hurting. Hoping to soften the blow a bit, we're partnering this fall with Underground Printing to do a t-shirt a week for the places we love. All proceeds go to the restaurant/bar/whatever.

Previously: Good Time Charley's, the Brown Jug, the Blind Pig the State and Michigan Theaters, Mr. Spots, Literati, Dominick's, and Ashley's.

This week: The Pretzel Bell

I want to use this space to talk a little history.

The reason Division Street is called such is because it's the line that divides the campus of the University of Michigan from the town. But much of the city's history it was the line between Dry and Wet Ann Arbor. A "student riot" at Hangsterfer's Hall, the favorite watering hole of the town's first century, caused city officials to ban alcohol east of the street, first with a handshake agreement in 1856, and 48 years later with a law. In 1918 (in large part thanks to their rival party's mishandling of a deadly pandemic), Republicans swept into office and enacted a statewide Prohibition. The Michigan law was soon superseded by the national one.

[After THE JUMP: History]

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Prohibition ended with the in December 1933 with the ratification of the 21st Amendment. The Pretzel Bell (a play on "Pretzel Belt" an old nickname for the beer-soaked upper Midwest where many Germans settled) opened a few weeks later, on the corner of Liberty and 4th. In case anyone missed the significance of a saloon on the doorstep of campus, the P-Bell's new owners filled the place with memorabilia from Hangsterfer's and photos of student revelry at other pre-Prohibition Ann Arbor taverns, and ran ads in the local papers advertising "Real Beer" even on Sunday!

In an era that favored dress codes, wait service, and tablecloths, the P-Bell was a casual comfort food station where students were encouraged to carve their names into the beer-soaked bare wood, then rest their elbows upon it. One wall was a long chalk board where students could leave messages and classifieds to each other.

For much of its early history the P-Bell was one of  just a handful of student-friendly bars on campus. [UM Bentley Historical Library]

In the 1950s students jammed in cheek by jowl as its television was the only place in town where most could watch the first televised games. Footballers were frequent guests and often served behind the counter (though some of the more famous names on the payroll during the Kipke era never seemed to be working when you checked). Fritz Crisler met a pair of students on the train from Princeton, and after hearing their thoughts on the bum Michigan had just hired, introduced himself, and treated the pair to dinner at a place of their choosing, which is how the new Wolverine coach wound up spending his first night in Ann Arbor dining at the city's most notorious student hole. During a renovation and expansion in the 1960s, the P-Bell established a "Captain's Room" for athletic captains, whose photos and memorabilia would be added to the walls upon their ascension (read: party).

The P-Bell also established a traditional free pitcher, chugged while standing on a table, for anyone there to celebrate his 21st birthday. When the pitcher was completed, a staffer would sound the bell. The venue got a break from this particular revelry just once every four years, as it was customary back then for children born February 29th to be backdated to the 28th.

Three ladies in clever disguise infiltrating the previously male-only bar, Halloween 1960 [Ann Arbor District Library]

In early 1970, the P-Bell hired then-French major Marcy Heller to help with the surge of undergrads when the drinking age was lowered to 18. The same week they hired a Bluegrass band named the RFD Boys, who played there thrice weekly for the next 15 years. Health laws were a little different back then—they would re-steam the bread, worked off the same big tub of butter, and raced barely pinked spare ribs out to the tables. The reputation for rare ribs only encouraged more students to meet under The Bell for a slab and a beer. The clam chowder gained a similarly viral popularity on campus, which led to a new chowder vat that didn't cook off enough liquid, which led to adding dried potatoes and ground corn flakes as thickeners, which begat several generations of disappointed clam chowder cooks who never quite figured out the secret additive in their favorite collegiate confection. Marcy Heller (later: Fisher) begat a sports blogger who writes articles that explain football concepts so she'll understand them. She also begets amazing clam chowder.

Health code violations caught up to them in the early 1980s and unpaid payroll taxes got the business, then run by Clint's son, closed permanently in 1985, the IRS auctioning its many artifacts, including the Bell, to put toward its debt.

A few years ago, a couple of those old footballers, Bruce Elliott and Fritz Seyferth, the fullback who made the "Block heard round the world" (and converted the 4th and 1 before it) got together with a local restaurant group to bring back the Bell. The new one's a block down and across the street on Liberty and Main Street. It's not quite the same as the one the Castors owned. The new P-Bell's pretzel-crusted macaroni and cheese and mustard pretzels are more in line with our modern standards of home-cooked comfort fare. The prime rib is still on the menu but it's shaved into the Victors cheesesteak (and fully cooked). The ceiling is high enough to breathe, and made out of old basketball courts. The chalkboard wall is in the basement, next to the ping pong table. The bell rings for all birthdays, not just the one, and when you get your free one at 21 you're not allowed to stand on the tables anymore. The new "Mystery Machine" spits out random beers not random…other things, though "Tears of the Innocent" remain on tap.

The beer selection is vast and crafty. Televisions and the sounds of various college football games have replaced the RFD Boys' banjos. They're paid up on their taxes and earned an A+ in their health codes. But the new Bell's wood tables do feature a new generation of pen knifed signatures. Its walls are filled with encased athletic memorabilia, plus a few recovered bits of the old tables and Hangsterfer's Hall. The main room abuts a long Captain's Room, where in better times you could often look in the window, notice the telltale performance jackets and numbered backpacks of athletes raising a new captain, and the object of their revelry earning her bell.

I got my P-Bell shirt years ago; get yours now, and when this is all over we'll meet again under the bell.