Detroit's oldest family-owned bar — operating on Gilbert Street since 1907 and acquired by the Abick family in 1919 — where multiple generations of family spirits, including a beloved dog named Shadow, reportedly still tend the bar.
3500 Gilbert St, Detroit, MI 48210
Age
21+
Cost
$
Working neighborhood dive — beer typically $4-$6.
Access
Limited Access
Historic early-20th-century corner bar; steps at entrance and tight interior.
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1907 · Detroit's Oldest Family-Owned Bar · Six-Generation Abick/Soviak Ownership · Polish-American Immigrant Heritage · Prohibition-Era Speakeasy
The building at 3500 Gilbert Street was constructed in 1907 by John Benske, who had emigrated from Poland and built the corner saloon as a center of the surrounding Polish-American immigrant neighborhood on Detroit's southwest side. The initial liquor license was held by John Wasielewski. In 1919, on the eve of Prohibition, family member George Abick purchased the business; the bar has remained continuously in the Abick/Soviak family for six generations.
During the 1920s and early 1930s the bar operated as a speakeasy through Prohibition — era bottles have been discovered in the walls during later renovations. The building also housed a barbershop one could walk through from the bar, and at one point a shoeshine stand and cobbler in the basement. The 1929 Detroit City Directory lists the bar at this address.
Across the 20th century, Abick's was run as a working-class neighborhood bar. Marie 'Manya' Soviak and her brother Walter 'Podge' Abick — children of George Abick and his wife Katherine — became co-owners in 1964 following their mother Katherine's death in an automobile accident. Manya and Podge each ran the bar for the rest of their lives; the building's stewardship has continued through subsequent generations and is now operated under Eric Lakeman within the family network.
Abick's is recognized in multiple Detroit-history features (Detroit Polonia, Metro Times, Bucket List Bars, CBS Detroit) as the oldest family-owned bar continuously operating in the city, and its survival across more than a century is regularly cited as a distinguishing feature of Detroit's Polish-American business heritage.
Sources
Per Visit Detroit's haunted-locations roundup and the chapter dedicated to the bar in 'Haunted Bars and Pubs of Michigan,' Abick's paranormal reputation is built on family rather than on tragedy. The two most-cited spirits are siblings Marie 'Manya' Soviak and Walter 'Podge' Abick — the long-time mid-20th-century co-owners who ran the bar after their mother Katherine's death in a 1964 automobile accident. Staff and family members describe furniture moved overnight, glasses found out of place, and minor messes attributed to Manya 'expressing displeasure' when she does not approve of changes to the bar's longtime habits.
The second cluster of reports involves the bar's family dog, Shadow. Visit Detroit's article describes Shadow as remaining 'attached to the bar in the afterlife' — staff and patrons describe the sound of heavy paws padding across the floors when no animal is visible. (Note: Abick's also has a current living English mastiff bar dog who shares the name; the apparitional reports refer to a deceased predecessor.)
Additional reported phenomena include a sense of being watched from the back-bar mirror, cold spots near the doorway to the original barbershop pass-through, and occasional rearrangement of items behind the bar between closing and opening. The chapter on Abick's in 'Haunted Bars and Pubs of Michigan' presents the bar as a 'living haunting' where the family's century of stewardship is the through-line, not violent or tragic deaths.
Readers should treat the lore here as warm, family-toned oral tradition. The single best-attested source (Visit Detroit) does describe specific phenomena, but the paranormal claims rely largely on family and patron testimony rather than formal investigations.
Notable Entities
Media Appearances
Drop in for a beer in the original 1907 corner barroom on Gilbert Street, in operation as a family-owned saloon longer than any other bar in Detroit. The interior preserves century-old photographs, a back-bar that survived Prohibition, and the family's pet dog Shadow.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
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