Don’t worry Kelsey Grammer, the Cheers bar is still open
Kelsey Grammer heard the Cheers bar went "belly up," but the OG establishment still exists in Boston
Can you still go where everybody knows your name? Kelsey Grammer fears not, even though the Frasier revival is moving back to Boston, conveniently close to a familiar watering hole within which they’re always glad you came. Appearing on Today With Hoda And Jenna, Grammar teased the sitcom’s return but cast doubt as to whether his character will stop by Cheers.
“There’s mention of a certain bar,” Grammer shares of the revival. When asked if Cheers is still open, though, he says “I had heard it had gone kind of… belly up.” However, “Someone recently told me they were there, so I guess it still may be happening.”
Allow us to clear things up for Mr. Grammer. A Cheers bar did shutter, as many bars and restaurants did, during the pandemic. That was the Cheers replica bar, which operated in Boston’s Faneuil Hall Marketplace for 20 years before it shut down in August 2020. But the actual Cheers (originally known as the Bull & Finch Pub, which inspired Cheers the sitcom) is still in operation on Boston’s Beacon Hill.
Now, the actual actual Cheers bar, as in the one from the set of the show, was donated by CBS in 2014 to memorabilia collector James Comisar’s Museum of Television, per The Hollywood Reporter. The 1,000-square-foot set had been until then “neglected in storage” and was finally liberated with the help of co-creator James Burrows, who helped petition CBS on Comisar’s behalf during the latter’s 20-year appeal to acquire the set.
At the time, Comisar was preparing for a $100,000 restoration of the set in conjunction with former LACMA conservators. It was a necessary step especially because the bar had been open to the public to sit and order drinks when it was briefly owned by Hollywood Entertainment Museum. “No real museum lets its patrons party with the artifacts,” Comisar scoffed to THR.
Still, if the patrons were Frasier Crane and co., an exception might be made. If not, there’s still a backup option in Boston. Because sometimes you really do just want to go… well, you know the rest.