5331 Chene Street
Rooming House, Sadowski Electric Company, Jaruga Music Store, Veronica Majkowska’s Music Box, The Round Bar, Zosia’s Restaurant, The Round Bar Cafe, D’elegance Lounge
This location includes 5329 to 5331 Chene Street
Most Detroiters know this joint as the Round Bar. However, it’s been called numerous names over the years. I haven’t been able to determine a lot about its early history, but here’s what I know:
I believe this structure was built in the early 1910s, like many of this part of Chene Street in Poletown East. I’m not sure for what purpose it was constructed; however, some reports say that the main floor used to have a boxing ring. I’m not certain there’s truth in that, as the structure’s shape isn’t prohibitive for boxing. Given the interior, I understand why someone might think that. If you have information about boxing events being held here, I’d love to hear it!
In 1924, the Sadowski Electric Company called the structure home, according to an advert in the Detroit Free Press for ABC Electrical Washers. I’m not certain where in the building they were located, but I’d guess the main floor, so long as this wasn’t a misprint. A ghost sign on the top of the structure says ‘Plumbing, Heating,’ so I’d guess that this was home to said business.
The upstairs was a rooming house. In 1928, the structure was for sale, listed as having 13 rooms. A player-piano was included with the structure, indicating that some sort of entertainment was offered in the commercial space on the main floor. The listing said that the owner was leaving for Europe. 5329 Chene was the rooming house upstairs, and 5331 Chene was the ground-floor commercial space.
The Jaruga Music Store would occupy a space here by 1928. They were Brunswick dealers and sold Everready Raytheon Radio Rubes. The business would later move to 5215 Chene and become embroiled in a controversy over the ownership of a Guanerius Violin worth $100,000.
By May 1936, Veronica Majkowska was operating the Music Box, a bar, on the main floor. That month, she had her liquor license revoked for selling to minors. However, in June, she had that decision overturned. She agreed to forbid dancing inside the bar and promised to make improvements to the bar. She was represented by Paul Tara, a republican lawyer who had ties to numerous mayoral campaigns in the 1930s. He argued successfully that the minor who had been served at Majkowska’s bar had been brought in by her mother.
Throughout the 1940s, there were still apartments above the bar.
In June 1945, the bar was run by Eleanore Boike. On a Friday evening, while closing up shop, she was robbed by three men. It turns out that one of them was her brother, Anthony E. Boike. Leonard Morandy, who was AWOL from the army, helped with the theft, and Walter B. Sypniewski, a four-time offender, was in on it, too. Depending on which report you look at, they made off with between $329 and $380 cash and $4,000 and $5,000 in war bonds. Boike got 5-to-10 years, and Sypniewski got life thanks to his priors.
1952 is the first year I’ve found mention of the Round Bar, but it probably was called that before then. That year, the Liquor Control Commission was cracking down on selling on Sundays, which was still illegal. The Round Bar was hit with a 30-day suspension and a $250 fine.
In November 1962, there was an attempted robbery at the bar that left one man dead. I’m not certain who was killed, but Larry and Audrey Chudy were involved in the theft. Audrey was convicted on charges stemming from abandoning her baby, and the hold-up charges were dropped. Her husband got two-to-two-and-a-half years at the Detroit House of Corrections. Chudy’s four other children were put into the custody of the Juvenile Court Boarding House.
William Sudomier’s account of visiting the Round Bar in 1965 gives us the best description of drinking and dining at the establishment. The room was split into two levels. The bar was on the main floor—complete with an oddly-shaped wooden bar. The second level was a half-moon balcony that offered restaurantgoers a view of everyone drinking below and the occasional glimpse at the television, which often showed Polish news. The upstairs was called Zosia’s Restaurant, but it was sometimes called ‘The Top of the Round.’
Here’s an excerpt from Sudomier’s piece, “Bare light bulbs hang from the ceiling. Artificial flowers bloom on the tables. A few sacks of Holland Onions lean against an unused piano. Some forlorn copies of Better Homes are scattered on a table…Other tables offer a panorama of Chene Street that includes Przybylski’s Drugs or the Polish Aid Society…Zosia’s also is clean. The food is excellent. The good is cheap.”
In 1965, a bowl of barszcz jarzynowy, a vegetable soup, cost 10 cents; naleśniki z serem, a cheese blintzes served with sour cream, cost 60 cents; kompot, a chilled fruit cup, cost 10 cents; and kawa, a coffee, cost 10 cents. All in, you could spend less than a dollar and eat well.
Around this time, it was first mentioned that the bar area used to be a boxing ring. Again, I’ve found nothing proving or disproving this, so I’d love to learn more. There was a skylight here, too, which brought light into the murky but friendly bar. Sometimes, Zosia’s Restaurant was called the Round Bar Cafe, but the two were separate entities. At that time, Leon Kulesza owned the bar, and Zosia Legowska owned the restaurant. Their relationship was symbiotic, and because of their tight-knit relationship with customers, both survived longer than most bars and restaurants on Chene.
On December 16, 1973, Leon Kulesza, the owner of the Round Bar, was murdered inside the bar. Ted Nawrocki, the daytime bartender, discovered that the door was unlocked when he came to open the bar at 11:30 AM and found Kulesza.
Kulesza, 61, was known for his tenor singing voice. He would serenade those sitting at the Round Bar’s odd-shaped bar and those sitting above at Zosia’s Restaurant. He lived in Warren and was a grandfather.
Nawrocki, the daytime bartender who bought the bar after Kulesza’s death, said that his boss kept the bar open until 2 AM, which no other bar on Chene Street still did because of crime in the area. He described him as fearless. Kulesza’s funeral was at St. Hyacinth.
For a murder that occurred to such a well-loved business owner, there was shockingly little information reported in the paper about his death and the aftermath. Despite Kulesza’s death, the Round Bar and Zosia’s Restaurant marched on.
This snipped from a 1973 article in the Detroit Free Press makes for a perfect call back to the era when Veronica Majkowska’s Music Box was still open, “While waiting we noticed that the old dance floor at the front of the balcony was inhabited by sacks of potatoes rather than dancers. The piano in the corner probably hadn’t had a good workout in some time.” I can’t help but wonder whether dancing ever returned to the bar after Majkowska’s dealings with the Liquor Commission or if that was the end of the boisterous parties at 5331 Chene Street.
Around 1980, Zosia Legowska moved her restaurant from Poletown East to Hamtramck. It was located at 2990 Yemans, the former Yemans Hotel & Bar. By November 1982, Zosia had retired, and Polish Village Cafe had moved into the building on Yemans Street. There may have been a time when Zosia’s was inside a Polish Village. Regardless, according to the Detroit Free Press, the new operation served the same menu that Zosia had. Polish Village is still open, so you can get a meal inspired (in one way or another) by Zosia’s cooking at the Round Bar on Chene Street.
After Zosia’s left the Round Bar, Ted Nawrocki’s family stepped in, opening a restaurant on the second floor. Ted was old, so his wife, Maria, ran the bar, and her two sisters, Dorothy Sobotka and Ewa Buza, took orders at the restaurant. The three girls’ mother, Janina Sobotka, made the food for the restaurant.
In February 1982, Ted Nawrocki died. After his passing, his wife, Maria, who had run the bar while he was sick, took over full-time. In January 1983, she said she was ‘barely making a living’ and might have to close the bar and restaurant, according to the Detroit Free Press.
Around this time, Poletown East began to really struggle. Things had gotten bad in the 1970s and 1980s; however, with the General Motors Poletown Plant cutting off access to Poletown East from Hamtramck, many businesses that stuck it out were strangled by the bottleneck of eminent domain. Hardly any of those businesses that survived into the 1980s made it into the 2000s.
In the summer of 1985, the Round Bar closed for a few months, reopening in September. That’s the last mention of the Round Bar that I’ve found online.
At some point after that, the bar became the D’elegance Lounge. I’ve found nothing online about this business, but I’d love to learn more about this era of the structure’s history. I’d estimate that this structure has been vacant since the late 1990s. Their sign promising dancing, music, and fun was still on the front for a while. Sometime around the pandemic, the original Round Bar sign, which had been painted for the D’elegance Lounge, came down.
Today, the structure is owned by the City of Detroit Planning and Development Department. It’s sat, looking like this (apart from the sign), for as long as I can remember. While photographing the Fredro Theatre next door, I talked with a man who owns the two-story structure across the street. He said he tried to purchase the structure multiple times, but the city wouldn’t sell.
I am unbelievably curious what the interior of the Round Bar looks like today. The structure is in extremely poor shape; however, the roof appears somewhat intact. Is the balcony still standing? How about the wooden bar? How long did people live upstairs? Did the fire at the Fredro/King Theatre next door spread here?
Like usual with vacant properties in Detroit, I’m left with more questions than answers. Perhaps the most crucial question is when the City of Detroit will try to demolish this structure because we all know it’s coming.
This is another structure that, if I had the money, I’d buy. As you might have guessed, there are a lot of those!
