5245 Joseph Campau Avenue
Ivanhoe Cafe, Polish Yacht Club
In Detroit, we only have a handful of restaurants that have stood the test of time. The Motor City has seen hard times followed by even harder times, creating an environment where even the tastiest joints run by the strongest people couldn’t stay afloat. However, those that have endured the decades are typically pretty damn good. Ivanhoe Cafe is no exception.
On May 18, 1901, Stanislaus Grendzinski purchased a plot of land that was once part of the former St. Aubin Farm from Joseph Perrien. One of the wealthiest men in Detroit, Perrien was kidnapped in 1891, making national news. The sale of a single lot in what would eventually become Poletown East wasn’t as newsworthy; however, it tells us that the Grendzinskis were in the area by then. A few years later, they would have a daughter, Agnes.
Stanislaus built 5245 Joseph Campau Avenue, the structure pictured here, starting in 1908. It would be completed a year later. Not much is known about the early years of the commercial spaces on the ground floor, but the family lived upstairs as soon as it was move-in ready.
In addition to the bar, which the Ivanhoe Cafe says opened the same year the building was completed, there was once an auto service shop located here at one point. The Lira Singing and Mandolin Club, which the Detroit Free Press reported as “one of the finest mandolin orchestras in the United States,” had their club headquarters here at one point, “with a library of 1,500 volumes at 5254 Joseph Campau Avenue.” It’s safe to say the corner of Frederick and Joseph Campau was busy from the moment the last brick was laid.
For weeks, I’ve been digging to find more information about Stanislaus and his wife. However, for the most part, I’ve come up empty-handed. Some sources report that Stanislaus Albert Grendzinski migrated to the States from Poland in 1886, married Anna Demps in 1899 in Detroit, and died in 1926. Apart from that, I haven't found much.
In 1901, a 1-year-old baby named Bronislaus Grendzinski died of enteritis. He lived at 909 Riopelle, which would have been behind the current location of Sweetest Heart of Mary Church. I can’t be certain this was a son of Stanislaus, but I assume he was related to the family. By 1915, there were liquor commission records registered to Stanislaus at 1085 Joseph Campau, the original address for the structure pictured here.
Eventually, the bar was transitioned into a restaurant that served booze. However, this is the murkiest part of the history of the establishment. The current name, the Ivanhoe Cafe, was named after the telephone exchange for the neighborhood. At some point, fairly early in their children’s lives, Stanislaus and his wife passed away. Agnes was the oldest of many children, so she took the reigns to raise the family’s younger members and run the restaurant. In her early 20s, she married Stanley Sienkiewicz, and the family had their own children. They lived on the second floor of the building and ran the bar on the main floor.
Although the bar’s full name is the Ivanhoe Cafe, it has a nickname that might be more popular. In the summer of 1962, Joe Hechinger’s wife called up the bar to see whether or not her husband was there. Big John, the barkeep, answered the phone and asked Joe, “Have I seen you?” According to the Detroit Free Press, he replied, “Don’t tell her I’m here; tell her I’m at the…aaahhh…Polish Yacht Club.” The story has various alterations, but I like that version best.
From that point on, the Polish Yacht Club was born. They formed a men’s club with membership cards that raised money for local charities and had an annual picnic with club members’ families. It eventually got so popular that they couldn’t take new members, and the only way new guys could join was after somebody died.
By 1966, the joint had become known as one of the state’s finest places to buy a perch dinner. Back then, a perch lunch would run you $1.75 and the dinner $2, or around $16 and $18.50, respectively, in 2023. Plenty of other food was on the menu, but the perch was top dog. The Sienkiewicz went to mass every Sunday, so the restaurant was closed.
Still going strong in the 1970s, the Detroit Free Press reported that “the side of french fries that accompanies the perch is probably the best in Detroit.” When the article was printed, Stanley was 83, and Agnes was 76. The article also noted that many of the regulars from the neighborhood had moved to suburbs like Warren but still came back to visit the family and get their hands on some fried fish or a burger.
In 1978, the Ivanhoe Cafe was dubbed the number-one burger in Detroit—a spot it held jointly with the Sabre Lancer Cocktail Lounge at 16543 East Warren. Although still best known for their perch, the BBC burger had become legendary. It was a half pound of ground beef topped with bacon and cheese served on dark bread. The Detroit Free Press gave it a nine-out-of-ten rating, citing that, at the time, it only cost $2.
In 1980, Agnes’ husband Stanley passed away. He was often considered the face of the bar—he hung around outside and spoke with patrons while they were eating and drinking. He was greatly missed, but Agnes typically put in the hard work cooking, so business went on as usual with Big John, the barkeep, picking up the slack.
Agnes’ daughter Lucy was always active at the bar, too. The family had hired Big John in 1947 after he got out of the military to work the bar. He would eventually ask for Lucy’s hand in marriage and become Agnes’ son-in-law.
On Friday, September 30, 1988, the Ivanhoe Cafe, or Polish Yacht Club, closed its doors. Agnes was 88 and couldn’t run the joint anymore.
After the final perch had been gobbled up and the doors locked for good, everybody who loved the Polish Yacht Club wept. However, the bar wouldn’t remain closed for long. Big John had apparently been begging Agnes to sell the bar to him for months, and she finally gave in shortly before it closed. The price? One dollar. The bar would be closed three weeks before it reopened at the hands of Big John.
As the restaurant transitioned into the 1990s, things at the Ivanhoe Cafe stayed in the family. Big John and Lucy’s daughter, Patti Galen, became the restaurant manager, and Lucy did the paperwork and ran the errands. Big John did as he always did—tended to the bar and helped out anywhere else he could.
On Friday, June 21, 1991, Agnes Sienkiewicz passed away. She was greatly missed, but because the business had already transitioned to younger family members, the restaurant could continue. Without the hard work of Agnes (Grendzinski) Sienkiewicz, there’s no doubt that the Ivanhoe Cafe wouldn’t be here today.
Only a few years later, the family would be in mourning again. On December 5, 1994, Big John Sobczak had a heart attack, collapsed, and died. Originally from Hamtramck, he lived in Harper Woods at the time of his passing. His funeral was at St. Hyacinth.
Lucille ‘Lucy’ Sobczak continued to own and run the establishment after her husband’s death with the help of her family throughout the 1990s and 2000s. During this era, dozens of Detroit’s holdout mainstays closed their doors for good. Whether the neighborhood surrounding them got too sparse, the owner passed away without kin willing to pick up the reigns, or an aging structure made it unprofitable to stay put, some of Detroit’s most iconic establishments perished during this era. However, because of strong family ties and loyal customers around Metro Detroit, the Polish Yacht Club remained open and still exists today.
From the demolition of Dodge Main and construction of the Poletown Plant that destroyed an entire neighborhood and cut off Poletown East from Hamtramck to the inception of an incinerator that blanketed the area with a stench of toxic air, the Ivanhoe Cafe still sits at the corner of Frederick and Joseph Campau, ready to serve you a perch lunch.
On December 1, 2011, Lucille ‘Lucy’ Sobczak, then-owner and daughter of Agnes Sienkiewicz, passed away. Like when her mother died, the family had already engrained themselves within the business, so it wasn’t hard to carry on afterward. Similar to her mother, her legacy is one of the many that made the Polish Yacht Club what it is today.
Patricia ‘Patti’ Galen and her husband, Bill, continued to operate the Ivanhoe Cafe until Bill’s unexpected death on December 12, 2022. A native of Detroit, Bill served as a Detroit Police Officer until his retirement when he became an unmissable face at the Polish Yacht Club. He was 64.
The Ivanhoe Cafe is still open today. In addition to Patti, Tina Maks helps run the business too.
There aren’t many places left like the Ivanhoe Cafe in Detroit—you could probably count the institutions that have been around as long as them on your fingers. I’m not sure there are any that have been run by the same family as long—but that’s a debate for another time. This place is special, and I hope it sticks around for decades. Architectural significance aside, it’s the people who make Detroit unique.
Judge Joe B. Sullivan, when asked about the Ivanhoe Cafe in 1991, said, “Johnny Smith was Detroit mayor back in the 1920s and the Ivanhoe was his favorite place…so anybody that wanted to be around the mayor learned to hang around the Ivanhoe. Even after Smith left office, newcomers knew that was the place to find all the old hands.” Today, you could argue that it’s still the place to find all the old hands and a great place to grab some fish, a burger, or a pierogi with kielbasa.
Many years ago, the Detroit Free Press was permitted to publish the Polish Yacht Club’s perch recipe. I won’t post that here—you should all go there to support this rad local business and try it yourself. However, if you live far from Detroit and are dedicated enough, you now know where to find it!
Special thanks to Sean Doerr for helping with some of the details about Stanislaus Grendzinski.
