ROCKFORD, Mich. - Managers of Rockford's Corner Bar are "cautiously" optimistic the restaurant will be back in business by mid-August, almost exactly a year to the day the restaurant was destroyed by fire.
Crews were working to help rebuild the building Friday just as the city's 50th Annual Start of Summer Celebration began. Many who came to town said it was a bit odd to see the restaurant not open.
Laura Golub brought her two children to the celebration.
"I do feel people congregated on that corner, and it was the place to meet," Golub said. "It's really different having it not being open."
Hours after the fire consumed most of the building on August 14, 2017, the restaurant's owner Jeff Wolfe told us he planned to rebuild at the current site.
“The Corner Bar is more than just this building,” Wolfe said. “It has meant so much to the community, the people that worked here, the generations that dined here, and we have every intention of restoring that entirely.”
Now fast forward almost a year, the building is partially rebuilt. Wolfe and the restaurant's General Manager John Vanaman wrote on the establishment's Facebook page that "final edits and corrections" are taking place on the Hot Dog Hall of Fame database. The business is ordering new plaques to be put on the walls of the new building and are asking people to look at an online database to make sure "everything is as accurate as it can be".
To be on the Hot Dog Wall of Fame, a person must eat at least 12 hot dogs with chili in a single sitting.
Vanaman credits a group of high school students who put a database together in 2016 to keep the history alive in the new establishment.
"We would have lost the whole thing," Vanaman said. "The Wall of Fame is part of the reason why the Corner Bar is so popular."
Vanaman also told us a bit about the timing of the restaurant's return. He says work will be done throughout the summer to get it open later this summer.
"It would be great if we could [open in August]," Vanaman said. "If we are open for the anniversary [of the fire] that would be cool too."
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