A blast from the past is about to reopen in Detroit early next year. The historic Willis Show Bar will reopen its doors in January.
It was once a happening jazz benue that had people visiting from all over, but its sat empty for 40 years on the corner of Willis and Third in the Cass Corridor.
The Detroit Optimist Society and a group of Los Angeles investors are going to turn it into an upscale cabaret and cocktail bar.
"Of that Cass Corridor show bar era of the 40s and 50s, this is the only building that's left," Steve Livigni, one of the Los Angeles investors told the Detroit Free Press. "It's kind of the last bastion of that era."
According to the Free Press, the bar eventually turned into a hangout for prostitutes and people wanting their service, before the county closed the bar during a prostitution crackdown in 1978.
They plan to use original photos and blueprints to recreate the original bar, and they have already spruced up the exterior.
