5145 Chene Street
Dry Goods Store, B. Ossowski, Meyer Siegel Dry Goods, Grocery, Mazur Bar, Raven Lounge and Restaurant
Some buildings are special. Not because they’re architecturally significant or historic but because of the service provided to the community and the generations of memories created there.
I believe that this structure was built in the 1910s. It was a dry goods store in the early years—a 1913 Ladies Home Journal Patterns ad lists B. Ossowski at the address. By 1920, the building was Meyer Siegel Dry Goods, selling men’s and women’s furnishings. At some point, it may have been a grocery store. The structure’s original address was 1049 Chene Street; however, after the city-wide address change in 1921, it became 5145 Chene Street.
Despite its early years as a store, this structure is most known as a local watering hole. At some point, Felix Mazur opened the Mazur Bar here. It was a Polish Bar where many former residents recall dancing the night away to live polka music. For a time, Mother’s Restaurant served food inside Mazur’s. Felix and his wife, Mary, had two children. He died in 1961. His funeral was at St. Florian Church, and he was buried at Mt. Olivet Cemetary.
I’m not sure if the Mazur Bar was still open when he died or if there was an operation in between, but Sam and Myrtle Watts purchased the building in 1966 and opened the Raven Lounge and Restaurant. Live music was the highlight, but the food and drinks were the lubricant that kept the show rolling. In 1973, Walter Hamilton and the Decent Exposures may have been the house band. Hamilton’s band put out a few singles and, from what I’ve heard, could bring the house down.
Sam Watts loved high school sports, the city of Detroit, and basketball. He found a way to bring the trio together through the Coach of the Year event held at the Raven Lounge annually, starting in 1975. The event was the brain child of Daryl L. Weaver, one of Watts’ employees. The best basketball coaches in the Metro-Detroit area were honored; sometimes, Mr. Basketball, Michigan’s best high school player, would be invited too if they were local. Over the years, Elbert Richmond (Detroit Mackenzie), Stan Allen (Henry Ford), George Duncan (Murray-Wright), Ed Rachal (St. Martin DePorres), Perry Watson (Detroit Southwestern), Gary Buslepp (Detroit LaSalle), Lenois Jackson (Detroit Northwestern), Dave Soules (East Catholic), Arnold Nevels (Detroit Kettering), and many more were honored as coaches at the conference.
In 1983, Antoine Joubert, Mr. Basketball that year, was honored. Joubert went on to play at Michigan and was drafted by the Detroit Pistons. He didn’t make the team, but his international career took him to Belgium, Mexico, Venezuela, the Philippines, and Poland. He is now the coach at Oakland Community College.
The following year, Mr. Basketball was in attendance again. Demetreus Gore was a star at Chadsey High and scored 1,555 points at Pitt, winning the regular season Big East Championship in 1987 and 1988. He was drafted into the Continental Basketball Association, but I’m not sure he had a career there.
Daryl Weaver was the bartender and manager at the Raven for over a decade. He was a part of the group that the Detroit Free Press had rate beers, once saying that he preferred Stroh’s, Miller, and Heineken, and calling Molson Canadian “a light beer, but one with body. I could drink a lot of it.” A person with the same name went on to coach at Denby High School for ages and eventually became the voice of the Detroit Public School League and Dean of Students at Marcus Garvey Academy on the east side. I can’t be certain that it’s the same person, though. Considering the impact that Sam Watts, the Raven’s owner, had on people and high school sports in Detroit, it wouldn’t surprise me.
Sam Watts died on May 3, 1983, from a heart attack. He came to Detroit from Summerfield, Louisiana, in 1950 and was a mechanic for UPS until he bought the Raven with his wife in 1966. In 1970, he met Weaver, then a Cass Tech student who would work for him for 11 years. He was a member of Hopewell Missionary Baptist Church and the Detroit Chapter of the NAACP. He is buried at Woodlawn Cemetery.
Even after his death, the Coach of the Year event continued in his memory. I’m uncertain when it eventually ended, but it’s clear that Sam Watts had an incredible impact on people.
After his death, his wife, Myrtle, held down the fort. In 1992, she was interviewed by the Detroit Free Press about the Rebellion in 1967, which gave insights into her distinctive personality and the effects that the events that summer had on the neighborhood just one year after the Raven Lounge opened.
She said that she left her sister and one of her employees to watch the bar because she “was worried about Myrtle, not the Raven.” Those two hunkered down at the bar and put a sign that said ‘soul sister, soul brother’ on the front of the business, which she thought helped it come out of the fire unscathed. According to Myrtle, not every store was hit during the events that summer. She remembers a small jewelry store owned by a Polish family getting looted. I assume that was Max’s on Chene Street, as I’ve also researched that one (but have not posted it yet).
She also said that the rebellion killed the business district. Those whose businesses hadn’t been affected directly uprooted their lives and left—it was the last straw for many families. In 1992, when the piece was published, Myrtle felt that nobody wanted to invest in Poletown East, “they’re afraid, really.”
When asked about the cause of the rebellion, she said that she understood the anger but disagreed with the route many took. “Two wrongs doesn’t make it right. We were only hurting each other. After the riot, we didn’t have any markets, any stores, nothing. Detroit just went to hell after that. I hope it never happens again.”
Around 1994, Myrtle retired from running the bar and sold it to her late husband’s long-time friend, Tommy Stephens, a retired teacher.
In 2005, Martha Reeves held an event or celebration at the Raven to commemorate her successful primary run for Detroit City Council. She was one of 18 candidates out of 120 to make it to the final ballot, which she won, serving on the council from 2005 until 2009, retiring to return to music.
In 2006, Kate Moss was photographed at the Raven Lounge for W Magazine by a once-legendary fashion photographer who has been embroiled in court over numerous SA allegations for over a half-decade.
Mainly flying under the radar in the new millennium, the Raven Lounge made it to the big screen in the 2012 film Detropia by Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady. Numerous scenes were shot at the Raven; however, Tommy Stephens is one of the stars of the documentary, as the filmmakers highlight his experiences in Detroit at the time, including owning a business, buying a vacant property, and questioning the Big Three’s tactics in a post-2008 auto industry.
In 2020, Danny Kroha, a wicked musician and friend of this page, restored the Raven Lounge sign/mural on the structure’s north side while Tommy painted the facade.
The Raven Lounge is still open and run by Tommy and Theresa Stephens. It’s the oldest blues bar in Detroit; if you haven’t been, it’s well worth visiting.
There aren’t many operational structures you can walk into without purpose on Chene Street. I hope that the Raven Lounge continues this building’s legacy of offering Detroiters a place to unwind, make friends, and listen to Detroit’s finest musicians at work.
