In a town full of individuals ready to bow down before the mighty block M, re-creating an iconic keeper of the flame seems a tad presumptuous, if not downright ballsy. Simply put, former institutions can’t be replicated, and “reimaginings” require such inspired perfection and minute fine-tuning as to be nearly impossible to pull off. But what if the original has been closed for over thirty years? Can you avoid—or at least ride through—the inevitable comparisons?
I arrived in Ann Arbor about the time of the original Pretzel Bell’s demise and never experienced its mystique. Moreover, I’ve remained a contrarian in this town of maize-and-blue, rooting for whatever team Michigan is playing against. My husband, a State graduate, is also indifferent to the sports mania, but he can conjure up a few incoherent memories of the old P-Bell involving pitchers of beer and the RFD Boys, the house band for many years.
When I asked Ann Arbor natives about the old place, most waxed lyrical, surprising me once I also learned it housed a cafeteria line, Tiffany-style lamps, and a dark paneled interior. (Imagine opening a brand-new eatery boasting those distinctive components.) Really, they assured me, the food never tasted steam table tired. Yes, the atmosphere was often raucous but always friendly and convivial. Patrons threw their peanut shells on the floor, and round tables—no booths or distracting TVs—meant everyone joined the party. Town and gown folks actually did intermingle—parents on a night out, students celebrating their twenty-first birthdays, medical school faculty announcing internships, athletes and fans toasting victories, politicos making deals. Their memories certainly evoked the sense of a true community hangout.
I found this intriguing. Until a few years ago, it was unusual for locals to venture east of Fifth Ave., and students seldom wandered down to Main St., but now that the Liberty St. corridor—the old Pretzel Bell’s domain—has again filled with restaurants and shops, traffic moves solidly in both directions. The new Pretzel Bell has staked its claim on the townie end of Liberty, at Main, in the space vacated by Lena and Habana, with an eye towards gathering in the entire U-M and Ann Arbor communities.
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For my first visit to the new Pretzel Bell I took along two friends with fond memories of the old place. One friend’s wife had worked there as a waitress—a relatively easy job, mostly involving drinks and silverware. The other, whose father’s name, circa the 1940s, was carved in one of the wood tables, had worked there briefly as a busser and remembered bringing in an underage girlfriend to drink beer before IDs were regularly checked. The hostess installed us in one of those long semi-enclosed booths left over from Lena, now almost coffin-like with gunmetal-blue interiors.
Looking about the present incarnation, I felt as if Lena’s dazzling white interior hadn’t been so much transformed as simply covered up. The layout is the same, with the open kitchen and small bar in back. Cabinets jammed with sports memorabilia and souvenirs for sale now partition the open floor into smaller seating areas. A high-gloss crescent of gym flooring outlines the wall of booths, curving over as it reaches the ceiling, and rough-sawn boards march along the other walls. Nearly all other surfaces, including the clubby chairs and banquettes, repeat the distinctive blue of the restaurant’s exterior. Photos of sports luminaries and new wood tables, already scuffed and defaced by staff and early patrons, mimic the old props. For me, the feeling is less a neighborhood restaurant than a corporate notion of a sports bar.
But maybe the vision speaks differently to other folks. Twice, patrons stopped by our booth to point out the pictures displayed on our booth’s wall. “That’s our son!” or “That’s our nephew!” they beamed proudly when we looked at them inquiringly. Clearly the photos had enhanced their evening.
And maybe bar service is the goal. Servers were inconsistent: friendly but sometimes overly familiar, sometimes distracted, sometimes oversolicitous. At a bar, it’s not unusual to fetch one’s own drink—as our friend did after watching them languish for five minutes rather than continuing to search in vain for our server.
Later, finishing up our dinner, I pressed our friends. “Why did you like the old Pretzel Bell?”
“I don’t know—the food was really good.”
“What was it?”
“Hot roast beef sandwich on the darkest, blackest pumpernickel ever, delicious turkey, creamed spinach, mashed potatoes.”
“Sounds ordinary.”
“I know, but they were really well done, and it was always fresh, always fabulous.”
“And how about tonight’s dinner?”
“Less ordinary, not so fabulous.”
I agreed. The menu at the new Pretzel Bell is a rote sampling of current trendy standards—sliders, Brussels sprouts, tricked-out fries and tots, farro and beets, mac and cheese—some tasty but much of it not very well executed. Chorizo meatballs with manchego cheese sauce sounded promising but were dry, hard pucks. The only flavor to the Wolverine chicken wings was the sticky sauce brushed on the skin. Though its sides tasted flat, the braised short rib was fine; repeating the trend, the flatiron steak was nicely cooked, but its au gratin potatoes, reheated to dryness, were flavorless, and the vegetable medley, slick with oil, undercooked. (Seriously, crunchy parsnips are not a thing.) A pickle brine couldn’t save an otherwise boring crispy boneless chicken breast. The carnitas tacos—three hefty portions—made the best entrée of the menu. Though more soup than pie, rhubarb-strawberry “humble pie” proved seasonal and bright, and the enormous slice of carrot cake epitomized the genre.
Subsequent meals suggest the kitchen does better with sandwiches. The P-Bell blue burger adds to the many decent burgers around town, as do the turkey and the vegetarian versions; pretzel buns provide a perfect fit, and the garnishes are imaginative and well considered. Two Salisbury steak sliders with shiitake gravy, sufficient as a small entrée, definitely impress. P-Bell fries with curried peanut sauce are as weird as they sound, with the “sauce” more like Jif than an appropriate accent.
Scrape off a serious overload of feta, and the pickled beet and farro salad, dressed with carrot vinaigrette, tastes fine, if overpriced at $13. The daily fish tends to be a big disappointment. Everything, from the rainbow trout to the minted peas and roasted beets, needs seasonings, and the toasted farro adds little. Nor does the ice cream sandwich, grainy and gritty, really make everything better.
“Okay, but really, guys, what made the old Pretzel Bell so great?”
“Layers and layers of good vibes, built in—you felt it when you walked in the door.”
I can’t say if I would’ve liked the original P-Bell, and it’s hardly fair to compare the new with the old. But for the pioneer to endure fifty-one years, those “layers and layers” took time to build, hammered together by a family who worked at the place they owned, cemented by traditions created over the seasons, and finished with an open door that welcomed all. You can’t manufacture a new restaurant with those layers already built in, and I’m not sure, right now, the new Pretzel Bell has the qualities to bring together the communities it hopes to entice, or to create, over time, an icon that will endure for the generations of students and townies to come.
Pretzel Bell, 226 S. Main, 994–2773. pretzelbell.net
Mon.–Thurs. 11 a.m.–11 p.m., Fri. 11 a.m.–midnight, Sat. 10 a.m.–midnight, Sun. 10 a.m.–10 p.m. Basement bar hours, limited menu: Mon.–Fri. 3 p.m.–2 a.m., Sat. 10 a.m.–2 a.m., Sun. 10 a.m.–midnight.
Lunch and brunch snacks and salads $5–$14, sandwiches $9–$12, entrées $8–$17; dinner snacks and salads $7–$14, sandwiches $10–$13, entrées $12–$25
