The longtime owner of Steve's Place, a bar next to St. Andrew's Hall on East Congress Street in downtown Detroit, has died at age 90.
A post Wednesday on the bar's Facebook page say:
I'm so sad to report that Steve [Francis] has sadly passed yesterday from his battle with Cancer. Sophie will close the bar after 43 years of owning it. Steve will be buried in Greece where he was raised and Sophie will move and live their closer to her family. One Detroit Icon institution is now and forever closed.
Tom Jackman writes at Metro Times:
Steve Francis (Tom Parr photo)Steve Francis was born in Portland, Ore, but was raised in Greece, and he retained a thick Greek accent. He once told MT that, in the 1970s, the bar was busy, serving a still-bustling downtown: "It was a good location, and the bar made a good profit. … It was a good investment."
Over the years, the bar also enjoyed a regular spillover crowd of post-show drinkers from St. Andrew's Hall next door. But in recent years, outshined by glittering casinos, remodeled cabarets, and stylish lounges, Steve's Place had become a ghostly, often-empty room presided over by Steve himself. It could be quietly surreal. MT's Alysa Offman compared a recent visit to the throwback bar to an odd dream.
-- Allan Lengel
