Anchor Inn owners ready to retire, close Harrison favorite founded by their dad in 1953

Ask anyone from the Anchor Inn’s former “Wednesday Night Gang” what makes the Harrison restaurant and pub so special, and the answer is simple — good food, good people.

“This town has been so supportive,” owner Joe Kolek said. “It’s been a great living and so much fun.”

He and his siblings, Andy and DeeDee, run the business founded by their dad in 1953. They’ll serve up the last of their locally famous Anchorburgers and cheese delights, the famous fried cheese squares, on May 23 before shuttering the community institution.

“We’ve had regulars that you could set your clock by,” said Kolek, 67, who started working at his parents’ side before graduating from Highlands High School in 1977. “I never thought we’d leave. I thought we’d all semi-retire and sort of phase out, maybe get to take a day off here and there.”

The pandemic had different plans.

Covid-19 shutdowns and the lingering effects turned the restaurant industry upside down, he said.

“You can live through the cost of chicken wings going up a buck. But businesses, since covid, have to fight fixed costs like insurance, taxes and utilities that are just ridiculous,” he said.

Pre-covid, the family employed 40 people to meet the demand for lunches, dinners and special gatherings. Today, the staff hovers at about eight employees.

“You can’t find help,” Kolek said. “We used to have people who’d work the same couple nights a week for 10 years or longer. Now we end up working nonstop. Sixty-five hours a week for a 67-year-old man is not good math.”

Where the restaurant once had six cooks scurrying about the tight kitchen, tasks now fall mostly to Kolek and his brother, Andy, who spend 12 hours a day preparing myriad specials that include the Anchor’s giant fish sandwiches, soups and chicken wings.

The Anchor Inn is one of the township’s longest-serving businesses.

Patriarch Marty Kolek, a Har-Brack High School graduate, opened the eatery’s first location about 500 yards up Freeport Road, near what is now a Nationwide Insurance Agency, before the road was split in two.

He was fresh off a six-year stint in the Navy. After working for two months at Pittsburgh Plate Glass (today’s PPG Industries), he knew it wasn’t for him.

His future wife, Esther, applied for a job at his new neighborhood bar. Together, they grew the business through three locations.

They expanded in 1963 to a spot at the top of Springhill Road, where Allegheny County public housing plan Sheldon Park now sits.

A self-taught cook, Marty Kolek started to focus on American comfort food. He wanted people to enjoy large portions without breaking the bank. The menu blossomed to include roast beef, mashed potatoes, chicken salad and thick-cut fries.

In 1973, the family settled into the current location — a former penny candy store named Lauer’s and then McClain’s.

The restaurant was contained to a dimly lit, street-level space that echoed with the sound of laughter and pinball machines. Andy Kolek was well-known for buying a round at the end of the night, often saying, “It’s more important to make friends than money.”

Brackenridge native Dave Miller remembers it well. He began frequenting the spot in the 1980s, often taking his mother to eat. The fish sandwich was his “go-to.”

“There’s nothing greasy about them,” he said. “The food is phenomenal and the service, too.”

Freeport resident Chris Ann Buday also is an Anchor regular. She doesn’t stray from the burgers and cheese delights.

“I get them every time,” she said. “It’s sad. The restaurant is a landmark. My family has marked most of our significant events there — anniversaries, graduations, retirements and my mother’s funeral wake. There’s a lot of special memories there.”

In the early 1990s, the restaurant expanded for a final time, opening seating on the upper floor of the building and ramping up the nautical theme.

“It was never anyone’s goal to make it big,” Joe Kolek said. “This has been unbelievably crazy how it’s worked out. We work shoulder-to-shoulder all day long, and I want to thank all our employees over the years and the customers. They’ve been like family.”

While he’s still digesting the imminent closure, Kolek admits he’s not sure how he’ll handle the downtime.

“This is all we’ve ever known,” he said.

The family will entertain selling the building, but that won’t be a priority, Kolek said. They’ll take the summer to unwind and then figure it out.

“If someone else came in and reinvented the place, I think it would go crazy,” he said. “But we are who we are, and we can’t change it. We can’t keep working 60-plus hours a week.

“We want to go out right.”