Discuss Detroit » Archives - Beginning January 2007 » Beauchamp's - 870 West McNichols « Previous Next »
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Mccarch
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Username: Mccarch

Post Number: 100
Registered: 12-2003
Posted on Wednesday, January 17, 2007 - 5:51 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

I've a postcard of the interior of this restaurant/bar c. 1950s. Quite a nice looking place, it was on the north side of McNichols/Six Mile between Third & Pontchartrain. Anyone have any actual memories of the place?

(To the best of my knowledge, the building is long gone.)

(Message edited by Mccarch on January 17, 2007)
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3rdworldcity
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Username: 3rdworldcity

Post Number: 416
Registered: 01-2005
Posted on Thursday, January 18, 2007 - 11:08 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Down the street from Petco's (related thread.) Remember the place but not patronizing it. Remember Menjo's, same neighborhood? Started out as a nightclub (actually, a "supper club") and I heard it eventually became Detroit's first gay bar. Probably long gone by now.
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Artistic
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Post Number: 32
Registered: 09-2006
Posted on Thursday, January 18, 2007 - 11:33 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Menjos is still an active gay bar
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Cambrian
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Username: Cambrian

Post Number: 511
Registered: 08-2006
Posted on Thursday, January 18, 2007 - 11:50 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

I've got an old Matchbook from Menjo's pre gay bar days.
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56packman
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Username: 56packman

Post Number: 914
Registered: 12-2005
Posted on Thursday, January 18, 2007 - 1:47 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Does anyone have a picture of the "Sax club" on McNichols, west of Pontchartrain (on the south side). My piano came from there.
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Schoolcraft
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Username: Schoolcraft

Post Number: 82
Registered: 07-2005
Posted on Thursday, January 18, 2007 - 1:58 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Bookies 870. Dont get me started.Please tell me its still standing.
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Al_t_publican
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Username: Al_t_publican

Post Number: 134
Registered: 06-2004
Posted on Thursday, January 18, 2007 - 2:24 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

I'm thinking of a place I hung out at from 1972-74ish called the Aorta that was on the north side of W. McNichols on the first block west of Woodward. It was sort of a rock and roll hang out then on the straight side.
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3rdworldcity
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Username: 3rdworldcity

Post Number: 418
Registered: 01-2005
Posted on Thursday, January 18, 2007 - 2:31 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Ah, the Sax Club. What a joint. It was purchased, as I recall, by Les Bingaman in the 50's. He tended bar. Bingaman was an all-pro tackle for the Lions for 5 or 6 years and as I recall had a heart attack and died at the club. He was by far, at that time, the heaviest pro-football player, weighing in at 300 ponds. Not very tall. Immovable when he was playing.
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Pam
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Post Number: 903
Registered: 11-2005
Posted on Thursday, January 18, 2007 - 2:39 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

quote:

Bookies 870. Dont get me started.Please tell me its still standing




This says it burned down:

http://www.bookiesclub870.com/ history.html
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Gary
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Username: Gary

Post Number: 198
Registered: 02-2004
Posted on Thursday, January 18, 2007 - 4:14 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

The Sax Club was on W. McNichols between Baylis and Inverness. I don't know much about it in the days when Les Bingaman owned it, but in the early 60s, it became one of the first (maybe THE first) topless clubs in Detroit. it remained open under various owners into the 80s.

Those other bars that were mentioned (the Aorta, Menjos, Bookies/Frank Gagen's) were all further east on McNichols. Those joints were jumpin' every Friday and Saturday night during the 70s and 80s with a crazy mix of gays, yuppies, punk rockers, new wavers, and bikers. That whole strip along McNichols was probably only a half mile or less from Hamilton/Ponchartrain to Woodward, but there was a whole lot going on for such a small, concentrated area.

(Message edited by gary on January 18, 2007)
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Jjw
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Username: Jjw

Post Number: 229
Registered: 10-2005
Posted on Thursday, January 18, 2007 - 4:48 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

I am pretty sure that Bookies was at one time called Gagens--it was a very well-known Jewish super club ( i think Barbra Streisand actually performed there back when she first started out)-Anyway-Gagens or bookies burned down quite a few years ago. Not sure what is there now. There was another place on the corner called Dons Beef and ALe or something like that. --Anyone have an update on that place?
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56packman
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Post Number: 916
Registered: 12-2005
Posted on Thursday, January 18, 2007 - 10:39 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Bookies was "Frank Gagens"--it had very art-moderne tall-skinny letters spelling out that name over the front canopy.
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Spaceboykelly
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Username: Spaceboykelly

Post Number: 194
Registered: 04-2005
Posted on Friday, January 19, 2007 - 8:58 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Jjw, please email me at newwave_popstar@hotmail.com
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Ha_asfan
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Username: Ha_asfan

Post Number: 89
Registered: 06-2006
Posted on Friday, January 19, 2007 - 6:54 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

My parents went to Frank Gagan's Supper Club in the 30's and 40's and I was there every Friday and Saturday night in the 70's when it was simply known as Gagan's. I think some of the best bad drag ever offered came out of Gagan's. Tiffany Middlesex, Sally From the Alley, Betty Clark, Trisha Trash,....they really were marvelous. It was always fun watching the "curious suburbanites" come through with their spouses then see the husbands without their wives the next week. At some point, it became known as Bookies Club 870, Bookies, for short. That was really the height of wonderful old gay Detroit when Palmer Park and Six Mile, along with Hamilton's antique row was in full throttle. Gagan's, Bookies, whatever...was the best source for whatever type of drug you wanted in the 70's....for a good time with fun people, nothing beat it. Don's Beef and Ale became The Cove. The Cove functioned as a small restaurant and hugely popular after hours club for some years. I worked there for a year or so as an afterhours server...

(Message edited by ha_asfan on January 19, 2007)

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