In truth, Frank’s has always had a “type,” but the profile was not built using banal criteria like sex, race, religion, education or income. But before he did, he stipulated that his remains find eternal repose at his all-time favorite hang. The couple eventually moved away, and Pierce figured they’d lost touch-until Nan materialized, years later, with a very specific request. But ashes? Those aren’t going anywhere.Ī former employee who came on as Sweitzer’s partner when prior owner Jay McConnell retired to the Jersey Shore in 2011, Brad Pierce wears a wry grin as he brings up Brian and Nan, customers he first met sometime in the 1980s. But they gradually came around, shifting to the sidewalk to spare adjacent lungs and the nicotine-pummeled ceiling panels, which still offer a distinct gouda-yellow Pall Mall patina today.Īshtrays, fixtures found on Frank’s riverstone-smooth Formica bar top forever, were finally 86’d. “So many people were so angry about it,” says Sweitzer. The ordinance, of course, incensed locals fond of sucking down butts with their seven ounce beers, the accepted practice ever since the space on the northeast corner of 13th and Pine opened as a tavern amid the dying gasps of Prohibition.
