It started out as a simple
neighborhood restaurant, on an Elizabeth Avenue street corner, across the street
from Weequahic Park, in what originally had been a private residence.
In thirty years under its founder,
it evolved into Newark's greatest restaurant ever, with a national and international
reputation, serving as many as 2,300 patrons daily.
I'm writing about The Tavern
Restaurant at 444 Elizabeth Avenue, on the corner of Meeker Avenue, in Newark's
Weequahic section.
In its lifetime, it won a
reputation for the excellence of its food, for the quality of its food service,
and as a place where the average Newarker could meet and eat with the
elite. Almost everyone who was anyone ate at The Tavern. 1
It was a place where Newark
politicos ate...where leaders of Newark business and industry met for power
luncheons...where organizations had their late night planning sessions...where
you went for a special occasion, an important meeting, or a date that you wanted
to impress.
Though its interior design was not
too pretentious, it was attractive in its simplicity, and at its peak in the
1950s, The Tavern was doing business in excess of $1.5 million a year.
Not only was the food fare
considered of the highest quality, but its baked goods enjoyed such a demand
that a separate Tavern Pastry Shop was built adjacent to the restaurant that
sold only the Tavern's pastries, and had its own following. 2
In the recollections that follow,
I will try to re-create the life and times of The Tavern, and of its
founder/owner/manager -- Sam Teiger, who built the business to its greatness by
being a good businessman who mixed hard work and dedication to high professional
standards with common sense and diplomacy, to create Newark's most unique and
famous eating establishment.
Sam Teiger and the Crowds
Sam Teiger was the most genial of
hosts. Here is a recollection of Teiger by former Newark journalist,
educator and fraternal organization leader, Ben Unterman.
"No matter how hard you tried
to beat the crowd, you lost. It was always crowded, and you had to stand
in line in the vestibule.
"There you would get a warm
greeting with 'forshpeisers' while you were waiting. You didn't mind
waiting, because there was Sam greeting one and all, 'Hi, Ben; Hi Dave; Hi,
Jack!'...always the elite, or those who thought they were elite for you to talk
to while you were waiting.
"I recall, one time Teiger called my name. Oh, oh! I had
forgotten to wear my jacket! No worry...Sam looked at me and figured my
size and came back with a tan jacket...sometimes too small, sometimes too big.
"No matter how long we had to
wait in the vestibule, we didn't mind because we considered ourselves a member
of the elite. Those who didn't want to wait were the 'commoners' who left
to go to the Weequahic Diner, a short way down Elizabeth Avenue."
Tavern Food Style
Aside from the fact that The
Tavern originally opened in what became the heart of Newark's upwardly-mobile
Jewish community, it was not a Jewish restaurant in the dietary sense, although
its menu included many Jewish-style dishes.
Over the years, in virtually all
of Newark's Jewish organizations, important meetings would usually end with the
participants moving on to The Tavern to continue their discussions.
Struggles in Early Years
In the restaurant's early years,
founder/manager Sam Teiger went through many struggles before his restaurant
caught on with its patrons. The turning point, according to Teiger's
recollection in an old newspaper interview, came in the mid-1930s when his food
establishment gratuitously catered a buffet dinner for more than 1,000 guests at
a benefit for the Beth Israel Hospital. Teiger said The Tavern's future
success started on that day.
It's beginning menu, when the
restaurant opened in 1929, consisted of a printed 4-inch by 6-inch card, with a
selection of a five-course luncheon for sixty five cents, or a dinner for a
dollar (The Tavern Menu).
Attention to Honesty and Efficiency
As The Tavern flourished in the
1940s and 1950s, Teiger employed the Willmark Service System of 671 Broad Street,
Newark, licensed private investigators, to have its operatives visit the Tavern
as patrons periodically, and to observe and report to him on the quality of the
service and "irregularities in the handling of cash payments."
Bill Newman, the Assistant Manager
at Willmark, made "test" visits personally as he considered this a
plush assignment. He would report the test results directly to Teiger.
"Mr. Teiger was proud of the
reputation of The Tavern," he told me recently, "and he always looked
pleased with a positive report. On those rare occasions when I made a
report that affected an employee's honesty, he would get a hurt look on his
face, and tell me "I'll take care of it. It must all be a
mistake."
"From my dealings with
him," Newman added, "I found him to be conscientious and hard-working
-- a real gentleman of the old school."
Key to Good Service: Operation By the Book
Pressed for information about
Teiger's management practices, the former Willmark operative recalled to me
"Sam was a tough disciplinarian where any phase of the Tavern operation was
concerned. He ran the place like a military installation. He was
known to fire an employee that set a table with a piece of dirty
silverware."
Over the years, Teiger developed
and refined a service handbook which outlined recommended procedures for his waiters
and other food service personnel in virtually every aspect of Tavern operations
related to dealing with and serving customers. The Tavern Service Guide
was periodically updated and revised. I recall observing revision work on
the Tavern service manual being done in 1950 at the Max Walter Advertising Agency
at 449 Baldwin Road in Maplewood. Sy Walter was supervising the revision
work.
My Own Last Visit to The Tavern
My last visit to The Tavern was on
January 10, 1957. It was a memorable one. I had just scripted and
staged a surprise "This Is Your Life" program for former Newark boxer
Lou Halper (and now a respected Newark businessman) at the Hillside B'nai B'rith
Lodge.
One of Halper's surprise guests
was former world lightweight and world welterweight boxing titleholder, Barney Ross,
who'd come in from Chicago for the occasion.
During Lou Halper's boxing career
he had faced off against Champion Ross in a non-title fight, and the two had
remained good friends.
Anyway, after the B'nai B'rith
program had ended, Lou Halper took Barney Ross down to The Tavern Restaurant for
a late night snack. He had invited me to accompany them, which I did.
Ed Koch's Recollection of Tavern Food
In his autobiography, former New
York City three-term Mayor Ed Koch, recalling his boyhood days growing up in
Newark, wrote about his good friend Donald Fischer "who lived in our building
at 61-71 Milford Avenue."
Wrote Koch: "Donald's father
was part owner of one of the most popular Newark restaurants, The Tavern, and I
remember going to his apartment and eating wonderful things that we never had in
out house."
* * *
(Donald's father was Henry
Fischer, whose sister, Fannie, was married to Sam Teiger, and who had been
Teiger's partner in The Tavern. Edward Koch and Donald Fischer were both
17 years old at the time, and were juniors at South Side High School, a little
ways up Milford Avenue from their apartment house home.)
* * *
World War II Tavern Happening
At the height of
World War II, as the Thanksgiving holiday approached in 1944, Tavern Owner
Teiger advertised that The Tavern would be closed to the public on that holiday,
and that all enlisted servicemen and servicewomen were invited to enjoy
Thanksgiving at The Tavern as his guest. According to newspaper reports,
more than 3,000 uniformed men and women took advantage of Teiger's offer.
Tavern on 30th Birthday
In September 1959,
founder/owner/manager Teiger celebrated The Tavern's 30th Anniversary of its
founding.
At the time of the
celebration, the Newark Evening News, on September 15 1958, called The Tavern
"one of the oldest and most popular eating places in Newark...with a
prominent position on an authentic listing of the 50 most popular restaurants in
America -- one of the top 25 to be exact."
The Newark Evening
News article cited The Tavern as having an international reputation as well, by
reporting that "United Nations delegates selected The Tavern as one of the most
popular eating places in the United States, according to a survey...published in
Epicure Magazine."
The Newark News
article went on to describe The Tavern's operation at the end of 30 years: It
had continued its unique rule of never making table reservations while operating
seven days a week...it served as many as 2,300 customers a day...it had doubled
its seating capacity from the original 120 to 250...it had expanded its list of
original 42 employees to 150 full-time employees."
Tavern Sale Announcement
The month following the Tavern's 30th Anniversary Celebration, Sam Teiger announced the sale of The
Tavern on October 19, 1959. 3
Sam Teiger: Community Activist
Although The Tavern
Restaurant was a seven-day-a-week operation, Sam Teiger managed to affiliate
himself with, and subsequently become active in numerous business, religious,
charitable, and educational organizations, both at The Tavern, and during his
subsequent retirement years.
He had been a member
of the board at the Beth Israel Medical Center...board member of the Jewish
Community Council...Food Division Chairman of the Essex County United Jewish
Appeal...President of the New Jersey Restaurant Association...Board member of
the Golub corporation--a chain of 30 New York supermarkets...Board member at
Fairleigh Dickinson University.
He also held
memberships in the Temple B'nai Jeshurun, the American Jewish Committee, and the
American Jewish Congress...was active n the Newark campaigns of the Community
Chest, the Red Cross, and the Heart Fund.
Passing of Tavern Owners
The end for Sam
Teiger came on August 9, 1972, when he died at the age of 69 -- 12 years and
eight months after his retirement from The Tavern. Services were held on
August 11, 1972 at Temple B'nai Jeshurun.
At the time of
Teiger's death, he had been a lecturer on hotel and restaurant administration at
Fairleigh Dickinson University.
Henry Fischer,
Teiger's brother-in-law, who had joined him in partnership shortly after The
Tavern's opening and remained a partner until its sale, pre-deceased
Teiger. He died January 7, 1963, after a long illness. During the
30-year life of the Tavern under the partnership, Fischer had been in charge of
the Tavern's production and quality control.
Restaurant Building History
The building housing
The Tavern had originally been built as a two-story family residence. In
the 1920s up until the start of The Tavern Restaurant by Sam Teiger, the
building, converted for business use, was occupied by two Newark firms for many
years: Service Systems, Inc. (Advertising), and the Peerless Laundry, Inc.
After The Tavern
cease operations, the building was demolished. The site is now occupied by
a high-rise apartment building.
* * *
Bobby Blum, after reading
Unterman's remarks above, added this recollection:
"Waiting wasn't limited to the vestibule. I remember
being on line going up Elizabeth Avenue past Krich-Radisco."
Myron Sugerman, whose father,
Barney Sugerman, was in partnership with Zwillman in the Runyon Sales Company,
reminded me, after reading this entry:
"The only one I remembered who didn't
have to wait for a table at The Tavern was Longy."
Email this memory to a friend.
* * *
