“It makes sense though, doesn’t it? The rail line to northern Michigan ran right by there.”Ī Hemingway expert says it does not make sense. “I would never have known that on my own,” said Lewis, who has published nine books, mostly on the history of the region. The claim was picked up by local news outlets. “He is said to have based some of the characters in his Nick Adams stories on men he met at Nick Fink’s.” “Ernest Hemingway made a point of stopping there while traveling from Oak Park, Illinois, to his family’s summer home on Walloon Lake, near Petoskey, Michigan,” she wrote. Rule and others at Gilmore relayed the story to local author Lewis, who was researching her “Lost Restaurants” book, released Nov. A Facebook post was put up, then taken down after reader questions. Matt Rule, manager of Fink’s, learned about the story from Bush. Bush wrote an article for the Comstock Park Downtown Development Authority. Bush says she heard of the Hemingway link from a retired teacher knowledgeable about area history. Generations have paused at this turn-of-the-century mainstay.Ĭommunity reporter Kathy Bush and her Zumba class often end up at Fink’s. Gold and black velvet wallpaper is still there, and the red and black faux leather booths have been restored.Ĭarved initials scour table tops. The long wooden bar has been refurbished. The bar on Grand Rapids’ north side, west of the Grand River, was bought in 2008 by the Gilmore Group, which controls 21 restaurants with local roots. Activities here are legendary, of bootleg booze, a brothel. He would eventually win the Nobel Prize for works such as “The Old Man and the Sea.”Ībout the same time, Nick Fink’s was flourishing in a tannery town with five bars and a state fish hatchery. The Upper Peninsula was the backdrop to his “Nick Adams” short stories. He traveled often with his family to their summer home near Petoskey. Hemingway, the hard-drinking adventurer, lived as a child in Oak Park, Illinois. This is how local lore was picked up unchecked by a business association, became known to the bar’s restaurant-chain operator, repeated to an author, ended up in a new book - and legend was sheathed as fact. “It’s not true,” said Nick Fink IV, the last in four generations of namesakes who owned what is touted as Grand Rapids’ longest-serving bar. “Best of all it still looks like the kind of place where ‘Papa’ would enjoy holding down a bar stool,” Norma Lewis wrote in her new book, “Lost Restaurants of Grand Rapids.” He takes breaks here on travels north, observing patrons who would become characters in the great author’s writing. Write the truest sentence that you know.” - Ernest HemingwayĬomstock Park – - You can see it in your mind: Ernest Hemingway leans into a wooden bar in a pub near the railroad line passing Grand Rapids. “All you have to do is write one true sentence.
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