Curtain Call, the Ann Arbor bar that took over the former location of the ill-fated Arena, is moving into its next phase. “This was a temporary concept from the beginning,” says operating partner Mark Adams. “We opened as a ‘pop-up pub’ with the idea that we would eventually transition to a permanent brand once we’d had a chance to try some things.” They’re now far enough along to unveil that brand: the Haymaker Public House.
The Arena had acquired some notoriety after a November 2015 episode of Spike TV’s Bar Rescue highlighted the financial woes of owner Brian M. “Mike” Flore. The Arena closed in July 2016 after Flore was sentenced to prison for failure to pay state taxes.
Adams is operating vice president of Sporcle, a Seattle-based company that arranges live trivia programs for bars and restaurants. The Arena was a Sporcle client. Adams says he and his partners had always planned to open a bar, so when they learned the Arena had closed, they moved fast–“which is part of the reason we decided to start with a pop-up concept first. We wanted to get feedback from our customers about what they wanted to see in a bar.”
Adams got his start in the trivia business by founding a company called Motor City Trivia, which later became Great Lakes Trivia and which he sold, in 2013, to Sporcle. The company puts on 300-plus trivia events per year in twelve states. “We’re a very data-driven business,” Adams says. “We leveraged that data in our decision-making when we decided to open Curtain Call.”
Though recently based in the Pacific Northwest, Adams and his partners are all natives of southeast Michigan. Growing up in Canton, “I spent a lot of my youth in Ann Arbor, and I’ve always loved this area,” he says. “We always planned to come home.”
They’d planned to begin renovations late this summer, but the partners moved up the timetable–“It’s time,” Adams says. They’ll start remodeling this spring, “stuff we can do while we’re open,” but eventually they’ll need to temporarily close for major work. “The bar actually spans the ground floor of two different buildings,” Adams explains. “We’d like to remove the center wall to the support columns to free up some space. And we’re also looking at moving the bar–either to the center of the room or possibly to the back.”
Meanwhile, the new menu is coming into focus. “We started with craft sausages, which we love,” Adams says. “We use Corridor Sausages from Detroit, among others. But we started hearing feedback like ‘where’s your bar burger?’ But we didn’t want just an ordinary burger, so we moved into sliders, which have really taken off.” The menu also features seven kinds of fries (sweet potato, curly, tots, etc.), “German nachos” made with beer cheese and sliced bratwurst, and a one-pound pretzel to go with twenty-four beers on draft and more than fifty in bottles. They plan to add even more draft lines during the renovations later this year.
In the meantime, Adams says, “we hope people will come and see us. We want to be your new favorite hangout. Try our food, watch some sports, and enjoy a beer. Let us know how we’re doing!”
The Haymaker Public House, 203 E. Washington St., 997-5399. Mon.-Thurs. 4 p.m.-midnight, Fri.-Sat. 4 p.m.-2 a.m., Sun. noon-10 p.m. curtaincall.pub
