Winds Howling

A month ago today I visited Two Way Inn, which may well be the oldest active bar in Detroit, established in 1876.

The claim of being Detroit’s “oldest bar” seems a bit fuzzy, but Two Way Inn is the choice of local blogger and “barchaeologist” Mickey Lyons. Even our local NPR station cited Lyons in its own search for the “oldest bar,” so even though Lyons herself reports being a former employee of this place, she may have to be our authority on the matter.

Sources seem to agree that this building functioned as a bar as of 1876. Before that, it seems to have served various other purposes — general store, post office, jail, etc. for a no-longer-existent town of Norris, founded after the Civil War by Philetus Walter Norris, an ex-Union Army officer who left shortly thereafter to become superintendent of Yellowstone National Park.

Today, as the Two Way Inn celebrates its 150th year, it stands several miles outside downtown Detroit in the middle of urban prairie, with vacant buildings, creepy houses, and tall grass where creepy houses used to be. Across the street is a concrete plant bordered by high walls of concrete blocks.

Making the atmosphere even more oppressive, Michigan was in the middle of a huge cloud of wildfire smoke from Canada, making the streets look like Silent Hill. Our book club was in the middle of reading “Roadside Picnic” at the time — my friend said it looked like the Zone outside.

I got there around 8:30 p.m. to see another of our friends play guitar in a band. A cluster of people were standing around the front steps, two of whom were smoking weed directly in front of the door. The girl taking IDs had a super friendly attitude.

The first room you enter is dominated by a pool table and fringed with dive bar seating, with Metallica pinball in the corner.

Keep walking forward and you’ll cross through a big, wide threshold, the other side of which holds the bar and a small performing area.

For a novelty, there’s a bell hanging above the bar: “If you ring the bell in jest, you buy a drink for all of the rest.”

The internet offers various stories behind the Two Way Inn’s name. The official website says “a Two Way Inn” is “a place designed with two exits in every room for safety in case of fire.” Mickey Lyons says it’s because there were “two ways in and two ways out of the bar. That was, they say, just in case the police or an ornery wife came looking for you.” HistoricDetroit.org somewhat ambiguously reports that “its name is believed to come from its original layout, which allowed entry from both the front and rear, offering patrons a convenient second exit in more turbulent times.”

Two Way Inn goes pretty light on its “oldest bar” status. There’s a banner outside proclaiming its 150th year, but previously that banner read “Family Owned and Operated Since 1973” — a reference to the Malak family that bought the bar nearly a century after it opened. There were old photos on the walls, but they weren’t photos of the Two Way Inn. One TV above the bar had a humble slideshow with some historical photos. A black-and-white photo was pasted up behind the bar, but it was too far to see.

My friend’s band, Boy Blue, played with two other bands called Sancho and Rowdy Fingers & the Ready Boys. The crowd was young, artsy, dressed funny and generally seemed warm and friendly.

I got the same beer twice, a vanilla porter from North Peak Brewing Company — my first time having it. It was pretty good, but that’s not why I ordered it twice; the bar was just really crowded, and I didn’t feel like processing any other information.

I left at 10, in the middle of the Boy Blue set I’d come to see, but that’s only because I had a 4 a.m. alarm set to get to the airport for Glacier National Park.

Here are some sights from the walk back to my car.