Cheers, Coyote Ugly and other famous bars

The Cheers logo: iconic and instantly recognisable

Many bars have become famous thanks to their celebrity patrons, novelty themes, because they featured on a well-known TV show or for all the wrong reasons.

The prohibition of alcohol in force between 1920 and 1933 gave rise to speakeasies, the notorious illegal drinking dens. Back then, American drinkers were just grateful to have anywhere to imbibe illicit liquor; nowadays every demographic seems to have a bar tailored to their tastes – the humble British-style pub; hip, young bars; gay bars; biker bars; and neighbourhood bars, to name a few.

The 80s American sitcom Cheers is surely the most famous neighbourhood bar. The Paramount production team wanted to create a US version of Fawlty Towers and base the sitcom in a hotel or bar.

Producers chose the latter, basing Cheers on a real-life haunt in Boston, Massachusetts, and creating a set of likeable, realistic characters to inhabit the bar. The legendary theme tune and tagline “Where everybody knows your name” has left an indelible stamp on the American psyche and tourists still flock to the bar on which Cheers is based.

Tom Cruise’s appearance in Cocktail did for bartending what Harrison Ford did for archaeology in Indiana Jones

In 1993 the first Coyote Ugly Saloon opened its doors. Formerly established in New York, the bar now has 11 locations across the country. The saloon is famous for its barmaids, who dance and sing on the bar.

Wild

Bar founder Liliana Lovell says: “Serving cheap tequila from a boot, bartending with boa constrictors, and just doing whatever the hell I wanted are what made the Coyote great.” So wild was Coyote Ugly that in 2000 the bar was immortalised in an eponymous film.

In the animated world two of the most famous manifestations of bar culture are Moe’s Tavern and the Drunken Clam, the regular hangouts of, respectively, Homer Simpson in the Simpsons and Peter Griffin in Family Guy. Moe’s Tavern, incidentally, is based on a real bar called Moe’s in California, where the owner bears a likeness to the Simpson’s character (hardly a flattering imitation given the animated character’s perennial problems with women because of his looks).

Actor Humphrey Bogart played one of his most famous roles in the film Casablanca, playing an expatriate nightclub owner of Rick’s Cafe Américain, a bar that has spawned many copycat bars throughout the US today. Tom Cruise’s appearance in Cocktail did for bartending what Harrison Ford did for archaeology in Indiana Jones and inspired an Australian nightclub to appropriate the name of the bar in the film, Cocktails & Dreams.

Over in Europe, Ernest Hemingway and F Scott Fitzgerald were regulars at the world-famous Parisian Ritz bar, later renamed The Hemingway Bar to honour the 20th century writer. The intimate saloon is still patronised by diplomats, bankers, models and business tycoons.

Hemingway was also a punter at Harry’s Bar in Venice, a hangout famous for its dry Martini’s and for concocting the first Bellini. Charlie Chaplin, Alfred Hitchcock, Truman Capote and Orson Welles were also frequently found drinking at Harry’s Bar.

In 1981 a London-based boozer, The White Swan, achieved notoriety when it was raided by police who arrested a group of men, dubbed the Vere Street Coterie by the media, for sodomy. The drinking establishment would hold secret rendezvous’ and gay marriages that were ministered by Reverend John Church, an independent clergyman who was claimed to be the first openly gay ordained Christian minister in England.

Also famous for its debauchery was the Haçienda nightclub, a Mecca for club-goers in Manchester in the 80s and early 90s. The club, which was demolished in 2002 to make way for flats, is associated with the rise of acid house and attendant drug culture.

Perversely, the venue named the most famous club in the world by Newsweek magazine actually made heavy losses because its clientele preferred necking ecstasy tablets than buying booze at the bar. The  Hacienda closed its doors for good in 1997 but was immortalised in the Hacienda Story and 24-Hour Party People, which charted the rise and fall of Factory Records, a label owned by Tony Wilson, the enigmatic impresario who also owned the Hacienda.

Notorious

Certain bars have become notorious as the scenes of mass shootings. One recent incident was the 2010 Habikino shooting, a killing spree which occurred at a bar in south Habikino in Osaka, Japan. Three people including the gunman’s mother-in-law were shot dead before the perpetrator committed suicide.

The Greysteel and Loughinisland massacres were politically-driven shootings that occurred during ‘the troubles’ in Northern Ireland. In the former instance three members of the Ulster Freedom Fighters burst into the crowded Rising Sun Bar in Greysteel in 1993, killing eight and wounding 13, while in the Loughinisland case the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) mowed down 11 civilians, six of which died.

In 2009 Erik Salvador Ayala was the infamous gunman responsible for an under-21 nightclub shooting in Portland, Oregon. Police officials described the massacre, which caused seven injuries and three deaths, as a random act of violence and called it “the worst mass shooting in Portland’s history”.

The Ten Bells is a Victorian public house marked for its association with two victims of Jack the Ripper, a notorious East London serial killer. The surrounding Whitechapel streets and buildings that remain today are flooded with guided tours and the Ten Bells was the focus of such tours for many years.

The Blind Beggar is another Whitechapel bar and infamous murder scene. In 1966 British criminal Ronnie Kray killed rival George Cornell, who had become embroiled in a feud with the Kray twins. The bar remains a legendary location and 40 years later the TV programme

Most Haunted chose to film part of its live show there.

There won't be too many famous bars for sale on BusinessesForSale.com - but perhaps they'll become famous under your ownership!

Graeme Williams-Cook bought a bar on BusinessesForSale.com with no fewer than three business partners.