EVERETT — The Anchor Pub in Everett is set to reopen under new ownership and a new name this spring, more than two years after the bar closed when police arrested its former owner on numerous sex abuse allegations.

The new operators, EverettPlace LLC, filed a liquor license application with the state Wednesday.

“What’s gone on there is horrible,” said Shane Ratigan, who will operate the bar with his wife, Kerri-Ann Ratigan and Holly Kristina Heath.

The pub has been closed since late 2021, when then-owner Christian Sayre was arrested and booked into the Snohomish County Jail, initially for investigation of two counts of second-degree rape and one count of indecent liberties.

Sayre, who bought the bar in 2014, has since been charged with over 20 counts of sex crimes. He is accused of drugging numerous women and sexually assaulting them, in some instances in and near the bar. He is set to go to trial in September.

The new owners hope to resurrect the 117-year-old bar and make it a welcoming place once more.

“We want to bring the life back to it,” Ratigan said.

They are renaming the pub The Ten-01, a nod to the tavern’s address, 1001 Hewitt Ave.

“It’s a way to show the love for the address, but we’ve got to change the name,” Ratigan told The Daily Herald on Thursday.

The Ratigans operate the The Pinehurst Pub, near Seattle’s Northgate neighborhood. The couple had been keeping an eye on the former Everett pub. When it came up for sale at auction in November, they urged their Pinehurst landlord, Dino Christophilis, to buy it.

Christophilis, an Edmonds resident and real estate investor, took their advice and is now the building’s new owner.

“We never knew Sayre or the former owners,” Ratigan said. “It’s not the building’s fault. It’s a great spot, a neat, old-timey place. We feel like we can bring something back to Everett with this.”

Ratigan said the group hopes to reopen in mid-March. They plan to offer a full menu and lunches.

“We’re waiting on the health department and the state,” he said.

The Anchor sits in a wedge-shaped building at the westernmost edge of Hewitt, a few feet from a rail line that runs through Everett, where bartenders have been serving drinks since 1907. A stone’s throw to the south of the tavern, affixed to a large rock, is a plaque memorializing the Everett Massacre, which took place at nearby City Dock on November 5, 1916.

Since buying the building in late November, the new owner has added a new HVAC system — it never had air conditioning before — and a new fence.

“We put up a fence in the back hoping to get a patio out there,” Ratigan said. “The railroad runs right by, it shakes the building, it’s just part of the building’s charm. There’s a great stage for live music. We’ll do our best to bring that back.”

On Thursday, the doors to the pub were chained and padlocked, and cardboard or plywood covered most of the windows. Inside, chairs were neatly stacked on the wooden tables.

“We’ve been cleaning up inside,” Ratigan said. “The previous owners just kind of left in the middle of the night. They left unplugged coolers full of food.”

Re-opening a bar sullied by the former owner’s alleged crimes has its challenges, Ratigan said.

“We’re here to meet this head on,” Ratigan said. “We want to hear what people say and do our level best to make people proud again of this iconic place in Everett.

“We are struggling with this terrible legacy,” he said, “but we’re here to prove to folks that bull(-expletive) is never going to go on here again.”

Janice Podsada: 425-339-3097; jpodsada@heraldnet.com; Twitter: @JanicePods.