Cleveland: Mitzi Jerman's Café

There’s a million bars in North America that stay open till the wee hours. How many close the screen door at 6:30 p.m. on a Saturday? If that doesn’t qualify this Cleveland landmark as something special, well…there’s plenty of other reasons. Chief among them was the late, lamented Mitzi, who died in 2006 at the grand old age of 92 (her obit ran on the front page of the Plain Dealer). Now managed by her daughter and son-in-law, the bar is a shrine to the grand dame of Rust Belt tippling. Mitzi was born and lived in the apartment upstairs and presided over the family bar even when she had to scoot around with a walker. Open since 1908, the café kept the shots coming through Prohibition, cheered generations of Browns and Indians fans and gave workers at the long-defunct factories nearby cause to blow their hard-won paychecks. Thanks to Mitzi, it outlasted its competition, and is now the last of its kind along an avenue of shuttered gin mills. Though the bar’s namesake is gone, the Straub still flows, the pool table is still yours for a quarter and Mitzi’s legacy is intact.

Photos: Anastasia Pantsios