OMG. Jaw dropping. I stopped by the Sail Inn today (NO, dear office mates, I did not even grab a beer) and I was floored by the transformation. Gleaming wood, polished brass, a clean navy blue bar top. Tables with shiny barstools, a ladies’ room the size of Rhode Island.
He did it. Rick Jankee (this is how he likes his name spelled even though it’s Janke on the “Wanted” posters) really did it. He cleaned up the Sail Inn and it is still the Sail—only without the smoke.
He was closed for almost three months and estimates he invested six figures in the whole renovation—including lost business.
“Yes, it was six figures,” he says. “Fifteen pounds, five unsubstantiated calls to code enforcement from hypocritical neighbors. I’m relieved that it’s finally over and I can get my golf swing back.”
Jankee says he’s also proud of his bartenders—who stuck with him through the whole redo, and have been with him a minimum of 10 years “to Inga, who’s been here 19 years, ” and he’s proud of the way it feels.
For starters, more people are coming. With a smoke-free bar, the whole atmosphere has literally been cleaned up. No stink. No ashtrays, No dismal cloud of grey.
But it’s still the Sail. Still your neighborhood bar, still the catcher’s mitt of your life when you need a place to go—and maybe a conversation with a fellow pilgrim.
“We’re so happy to be able to have a reasonably priced drink and not have to deal with downtown—which has developed an anti local sentiment,” Jankee says. “It’s the Sail Inn, the same stinking tradition—but without the stink.”
In a more serious tone Jankee says, “We are the last flicker of what was old Delray and I tried to keep that…”
And indeed he has.
I’ll drink to that.
