Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's Chuck and Jerry's even here too, So this is a real deal episode of Stuff you Should Know. Let's go.
That's right, another New York a dish.
Yeah, we're putting them out every week now, it's been a while, No it hasn't. We just did Studio fifty four a few weeks back. Oh yeah, that's pretty New York.
No, I mean it's super New York, by the way, but I sent you pictures. But I went by Studio fifty four, I know.
I saw that.
It was kind of cool. They still have the doors that say Studio fifty four. They left a few iconic bits. I was on that sidewalk in front of it, trying to imagine people having sex on the sidewalk, and I got really grossed out.
You could envision it.
Oh yeah, god, you should. I should have picked out a hotter couple maybe in my mind, but didn't do it.
No, you got dan akright as a wild and crazy guy.
I saw that movie too when I was there, By the way, what movie The Saturday Night Live movie about the first episode of Saturday Night Live.
So you saw you're in your most recent New York trip. You saw there's a movie out, is what you're saying about Saturday Night Live.
Yeah, it's Jason Rightman's new movie. It's called Saturday Night Oh.
Well, good for him. I like most of his stuff.
Yeah, if you're a fan of SNL, the movie is good enough.
I think did they portray chevy Chase like my dad taught me to think of him?
The guy who played chevy Chase was great?
Okay?
Yeah?
Was it chevy Chase?
Chevy Chase Junior?
Junior.
It's like when Ice Cube got his son to play him, because he looks just like him. It was pretty perfect.
The kid did really well until the hospital scene where Easy's dying. Up until that moment, I was like, this kid's pretty good for an amateur. Yeah, and even after that too. It's just like one brief moment and it can be forgiven.
Yeah, I mean, how do you think you would do in an Easy death scene? Huh, mister big shot?
I would I'd be pretty over the top, I think easy, Yeah, pounding on the walls and sobbing. Yeah, we're both just decided at the same time. It's time to get on with the episode.
Huh yeah, enough of that, So, Chuck, we're talking.
About Tavern on the Green. And I know for a fact that we're talking about Tavern on the Green because you recently dined at Tavern on the Green and after reading all of this stuff, I actually am I'm curious to know what you thought of it, because I'm curious. That's why let's just leave it at that.
Well, have you been did I ask you that you didn't?
And no, so no to both of those.
Okay, how about this, I'll save my review of the experience till the end. I think that's a great plan just to tantalize listeners.
So let's go. We'll tell everybody if you're not familiar with Tavern on the Green, it's a legendary restaurant in part because of its location. It's in one of the better restaurant locations in the United States. It's on Central Park. It's actually a part of Central Park, so much so
that the city's parks department actually owns the restaurant. They just lease it out to different operators who want to try their hand at making it like the premier dining establishment in Manhattan, and at multiple times it has been exactly that. But what a lot of people don't know, especially if you're not familiar with the restaurant, is that it actually started out as a sheep enclosure. Sheep used to sleep in tavern on the Green.
Yeah, you know, I think the fact that it's owned by the Parks Department is the fact of the episode. I had no idea until yesterday.
Okay, Yeah, it's definitely up there for sure in this one.
Yeah, but sheep Fold is a sheep enclosure, and for the first sixty years or so, that's what Taverner on the Green was, Like you said, just as a sort of a quick recap. If you want to listen to our Central Park episode about the history of Central Park, it's well worth a listen. But when Frederick law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux designed Central Park, they want a contest in eighteen fifty eight design contests for their Greensword plan.
Part of the plan called for a parade ground and a very big playground right at sixty sixth Street on the west side of the park.
Yeah, and the thing took so long to build. I think they were awarded the contract for their plan in eighteen fifty eight, and by eighteen seventy they were still building this and they were like, parade grounds are so a eighteen fifties. We don't want one of those anymore. Yeah, we're gonna go We're going to turn it into a sheep meadow instead, because apparently sheep were all the rage
at the time. And I think that actually goes to show even by the eighteen seventies, New York was so urbanized that people yearned for kind of a pastoral setting, so much so that they made a sheep meadow with sheep in the middle of Manhattan in Central Park so that people could come, you know, take in the sheep.
Yeah, well, not take them into visually. Yeah. We talked a lot about Boss Tweed obviously, anytime we're talking about this period, this era of New York. Boss Freed Tweed ran the city and his cronies got involved with the Central Park Planning Board and said, all right, we're going to do some upgrades six million dollars worth in fact, which is a ton of money back then and today. But one of the new additions was a really fancy sheep fold at sixty seventh in Central Park West that
was really beautiful. It was designed by Jacob Ray Mold, one of the guys who designed a lot of the actual buildings there in Central Park, of which there are not a ton of, but they all have a distinct sort of They're all sort of like made of stone, and they all are really kind of classy and old school looking. Neo Gothic, Yeah, neo Gothic. He was really into that Gothic revival stuff. So Mold designed this beautiful sheep fold and people would, like you said, they would come.
It was almost like an interactive little museum. They could come and look at the sheep. They could come and touch different varieties of wool. They would shear those sheep and sell that wool in a big event every year. And it was like, like you said, it was like, Hey, you're tired of the city, you can go watch those beautiful Dorset sheep and touch they're almost at first their will.
Right, good catch. Yeah. New York loves its unofficial mascots. It loves adopting mascots. And I get the impression that that flock of sheep was worn of them at the time. So they lived there from the eighteen seventies up until nineteen thirty four and they were moved to the Prospect
Park in Brooklyn. I read somewhere that one of the rumors about that move was that Hooverville basically a tenement camp that was set up by people during the depression to survive in They were worried that they were going to start poaching sheep, so they moved them from Central Park to Prospect Park to protect the sheep.
I believe that.
But there was a couple of things about that sheep enclosure that became Tavern on the Green. One of the things was that the Central Park zoos sometimes they would have extra animals I guess, more than they could care for, so they would put them in the sheep closure temporarily until they could find someone to sell it to. And at one point there was a puma in there with the sheep, and I'm quite sure the sheep did not like that at all.
Yeah, that probably wasn't a good move. They did enjoy their home, because this thing in eighteen seventy one cost seventy thousand dollars to build, and like I said, it was a beautiful building. They had these pavilions built for people to sit in to watch and these pavilions had these boucolic pastoral murals and it was just a lovely little scene there. They even had, of course, a shepherd, the last one to work there, worked there for the
final two decades until nineteen thirty four. His name was Frank Hoey, and he watched over the herd and lived there in nineteen thirty four. That's like you said when everything changed, when Parks Commissioner Robert Moses, very famous New York figure, said you know what, this sheep fold should be a restaurant.
Yeah, and should be is a weird way to put it, because when he announced it, they'd already started construction on converting it, Yeah, to a restaurant. That was like a tried and true Robert Moses trick where he's well known, by the way as over developing and paving New York City, often through vital neighborhoods. But that was just that was standard Robert Moses stuff, like well, we've already started. If you don't like the idea, sorry, we've already started and
spent money on it. What are we going to do now?
Yeah? I think his big slogan was, by the way, exactly did I mention, Yeah, did I mention?
So this was I think In February nineteen thirty four, the announcement came out The New York Times read sheep fold In Park to become Tavern CWA workers converting old building into a picturesque, popular restaurant. Prices to be moderate.
Yeah, and then they also said the remodel building will be known in the future as Tavern on the Green and and you know, within the average within reach of the average purse was sort of the working not slogan, but just you know, they wanted to make it affordable. It wouldn't turn out, you know, it would end up being, I guess for the time, a pretty expensive restaurant. I think once it hit the sixties and seventies. But we'll
get there. Now. It's you know, it's a it's a New York restaurant, so it's not cheap, but it's not like some super super expensive place.
Yeah. I was surprised to see that. I read a twenty fourteen restaurant review when it opened up again in its current incarnation, and they were talking about like thirty dollars main dishes. Yeah, that is not bad. No, I mean, find a Barney City.
Yeah exactly.
I was, yeah, surprised to hear that, but I found an old menu from maybe the fifties. They were selling martinis for like eighty five cents, not on sale. This was not a happy hour price, this was their regular menu. Yeah, yeah, I know. You imagine how much trouble we would get into.
Yeah exactly. It's just get the change person out and live your life. So one part of the announcement then said this, the park Department will not undertake the management of the restaurant, but will let it, as in, lease
it to an outside concessionaire by public bidding. And that started sort of a very unusual arrangement where in New York City we did the landlord of Tavern on the Green and people would you know, bid for the contracts and not only bid for the contracts, but pay a pretty hefty licensing fee to do so.
Yeah, that's a big one too. They would pay an incense like MRH and gold coin as tribute to the city. Didn't believe that one good, so they seemed to the City of New York also seems to have gotten some free labor out of the deal from the federal government because the civil Works Administration, which is a federal agency during the depression that put out of work Americans to work and like revamping infrastructure, you know, all the stuff we do today. They actually converted the sheep Fold to
the Tavern on the Green. They paved the place where the sheep used to eat with flagstones, so it was converted to an outdoor dining area. You could also dance there.
People wouldn't look at you weird if you did. And because it seems to have been an outdoor dining venue only in its first incarnation in the thirties, it was Dave helped us with this and he tried to do some digging, and I think he's right that it was open only during the summer because it was too cold to eat outside in the winter in New York.
Yeah, And they called it Tavern on the Green because New York had a rich tradition of taverns in their past. In the seventeen hundreds, they had more taverns per capita than any city in the world. And something else called pleasure gardens were popular in the eighteenth century where you could, you know, have a drink and do some dancing in
a very pastoral park like setting. And so tavern on the Green was kind of a throwback to like, hey, you know, throwback to the to the days of the eighteenth century.
Yeah, and I read a little more on it, I think on Curved or I think it was Curved where they were talking about how those taverns were those pleasure gardens often sprouted from tavern So taverns played a really big role on creating green space even as far back as the eighteenth century. Like, that's how much New York was starving for green space that you would have to like hang out at a tavern to do it. So I thought that was pretty cool as a nod to that tradition.
Well, their paved space was covered in horse crab, so I mentioned green space was a nice respite.
Right, Yeah, and if you brought a horse to the tavern, people would get really mad.
Oh man, can you imagine.
You want to take a break?
Yeah, that's a great setup. And then we'll pick back up in the nineteen thirties, right up to this.
Learn and stuff with Joshua John stuff fu Shine Up. So the whole thing started in the thirties when they converted the sheep fold into the tavern on the Green, and it was eventually like it didn't last for very long as a tavern, or maybe this was during the winter Chuck. It was taken over by the headquarters of the City Patrol Corps during the forties. During World War Two, a lot of the police officers around America went off
to war. They still need police back in America, so they got volunteers actually from the people who were still in the country, and apparently they made their headquarters at Tavern on the Green And then in nineteen forty three things really started to swing. I think it was kind of an unusual, peculiar place up until this point. In nineteen forty three, it like really starts to become Tavern on the Green as we understand it today.
Yeah, because you know, New York grew from the south upward and this was way up at sixty six sixty seventh Street, So yeah, it might have taken a while for that to become legitimized. But yeah, forty three is when it really kind of started the I was about to say NonStop operation as restaurant, but as we'll see,
that would be interrupted later on as well. But it's at this point that it became year round open dancing, dining, cocktailing, drinking three shots of gin for eighty five cents, I guess. And it was doing pretty good. You know, it was one of the most popular restaurants in the nineteen fifties.
They expanded it from ten thousand square feet to more than double to twenty one thousand, including the very famous Elm Tree Room, which you know, they built around one of the famous live elm trees, and including the indoor and outdoor space they had, they could see more than up to twelve hundred guests.
Wow, that's a lot of people, a lot of folks. I looked all over for a picture of that Elm Tree room with Elm tree. There's a real dearth of like vintage photos of Tavern on the Green. You think they'd be all over the internet, but they're not.
Yeah, and I'm sure you ran into what I did, which is tons of articles about that other elm right next to the outdoor dining that was recently cut down.
I didn't see that. No, they cut down an elm tree. Huh.
Yeah, it was a one hundred and six year old elm. And I think that it was like this summer that had some kind of blight and that, you know, unfortunately they had to take it down. But that was not I don't think the Elm from the Elm Tree Room.
Okay, okay, good, pretty sure. So by nineteen fifty, the Tavern on the Green was enough on the map as far as like like nightlife in the United States went, like popular culture was well enough aware of Tavern on the Green that they were able to sell a live album called Dancing at the Tavern on the Green to Milt Saunders and his orchestra. And if you see did you see the cover of that thing, Oh man, it is they might as well just stamped the numbers nineteen
fifty on the cover and left it at that. It's pretty great. But that was like they sold that record because people out who couldn't make a Tavern on the Green would want to buy that and impress their friends.
Yeah, totally. This is where they first started wrapping the trees with the white lights, which is one of the sort of signature Tavern on the Green things.
Yeah, I saw they're up to ten miles of lights. Now.
Yeah, I mean, I will say this spoiler alert for my ultimate review. It is a very beautiful place to die.
Yeah, I believe that.
Still in fifty six, a very interesting thing happened in its history when Robert Moses found himself up against some Manhattan mommies when he said, Hey, I'm gonna I need a bigger parking lot, so I'm going to use this half acre over here that. Yeah, sure there are a lot of kids that like playing over there, but we need some parking. And the moms took it very seriously and they got their kids informed. A human barricade to block bulldozers got in a real fight with Moses. He
built a fence to try and keep them out. The mom's got an injunction, and uncharacteristically Moses backed down and abandoned that and set aside fifty thousand dollars for a new playground that's still there today.
Yeah, the West sixty seventh Street to Venture Playground, which if you see like vintage photos of it from the sixties, they're like mounds made of stone that like I could just see a kid slipping on and cracking its head open with like they looked really dangerous, but I think they kind of converted them into something a little more safe today. But yeah, it's really neat that the tradition of playgrounds that generation after generation of kids had played
on totally. So the first notable restaurant tour that took over, I think the first restaurant tours that took over was in the forties and they owned the Claremont Inn and it was a super stuffy, well heeled dining place on the Hudson. They're the first notable ones. But the first
actual restaurant tour who people had already heard of. His name was Joe Baum and this is in the sixties that he took over the lease of Tavern on the Green and he was known as the cecil b de Mill of restaurant tours, which was really saying something in the sixties.
Yeah, and for good reason. He ran not only Tavern on the Green, but the Windows of the World atop the World Trade Center, eventually the Rainbow Room, the world famous Rainbow Room, and the Four Seasons, which at the time when this dude, when Joe Baum was running these, they were the four highest grossing restaurants in Manhattan and they were all his. Yeah, it's remarkable.
Yeah, I mean, that's a cecil b de Mill type. Yeah, And if you don't know who that is, look him up right. Yeah, so he did a really good job of putting it on the map, and like we said, you know, by nineteen fifty it was already you know, part of popular culture. But I think this guy really turned it into something genuinely special for the first time.
But I think most people who know about the history of Tavern on the Green would agree that it didn't really become like a gem of a restaurant bejeweled even until Warner Leroy came along in I think nineteen seventy four.
Yeah, he came along at a good time because the through the sixties and seventies it was doing okay, but it started to feel a little bit dated. And then by the time the seventies rolled around, Central Park had become I don't know like how legitimately dangerous it was, but it became dangerous enough to where it was sort of part of the national punchline as far as like, yeah, I go to Central Park if you want to get mugged,
that kind of thing. And so, you know, the restaurant fell on harder times and Joe Baum was calling it the Tavern in the Red and in nineteen seventy four, like you said, Warner Leroy took over. He's a former theater director, and this guy had a to say. He had a flare sort of understating things. He ran a bar for a while called Maxwell's Plumb.
Oh my god, it's seen pictures of that.
God, just gorgeous restaurant. Maybe over the top. I don't know about gaudy or not. I mean, I think it looks like an amazing place to have Artini, but it did get some like bad reviews for just how sort of kaleidoscopic and gaudy it was.
Did you see the picture of the actual bar bar?
Oh yeah, Oh my god, dude.
It looked just amazing. But also the dining room it was just cool too, Like they had low ceilings with tiffany lit tiffany plated glass hanging down or covering them. It's just amazing. Yeah, I loved Maxwell's Plum. I would have loved it too. It turns out also carry Grant, Warren, Baty, Barber Streisan. They all loved Maxwell Plum. All the best people.
Yeah.
And one of the things that that Warner Leroy was known for that he made his name for at Maxwell's Plum was having a really eclectic menu that was also not exclusionary. He wanted to make sure that basically anybody could come and like enjoy a meal at his place. And he also didn't have a dress code either. That was a big one too. He wanted you to just feel comfortable. So he had Maxwell Plum's menu everything from Iranian caviar to hamburgers. I believe.
Yeah, there's a place in Atlanta, what is his name of it? Haven't been there, but the theme of the restaurant is that it's got like five or six different distinct cuisines, and that's like what it's known for. And it's even in the name of the restaurant. I can't remember what it's called.
Oh, six cuisines over on West Peach Tree.
That's a good one. Thanks, you got me. I can't remember anyway, I'll look it up and let you know.
Yeah, please do let me know.
But you're right. So Maxwell's Plum was was kind of a wacky place. He took over tabern On the Green and he brought that same kind of flashiness there. He has a quote where he said, a restaurant is a fantasy kind of living theater in which diners are the most important members of the cast. It's one of the few creations that appeal to all of this senses and
one with which I can create my own world. So he spent ten million bucks on a restaurant he doesn't own, renovating this thing to, you know, in his own sort of flashy style.
So did you see that New Yorker review that I sent you?
Yeah?
Did you see them describing what they what they did on opening day in nineteen seventy six. Yeah, so I say take.
It, man, Well, I don't have it in front of me, can you take it?
Sure? So they had the world's largest Sunday seventy two and fifty pounds of Neapolitan ice cream. There was a nine liter bottle of champagne that had been flown over from France that had its own first class seat on Air France. And then there was a sixteen foot model of Central Park as a cake. This is what Warner Leroy did. Yeah. I also saw that he was known for wearing taffeta suits or sequin suits, So yeah, he
was flashy to the nines. He was also the son of the legendary producer of the Wizard of oz Mervyn le Roi, which explains Warner LeRoy's daughter's name.
Oh is it Dorothy?
It'd be great. No, her name is Jennifer oz le Roi.
Oh right, okay, yeah.
Let's called family tradition right there.
I really thought it would be Dorothy.
It kind of should have been Dorothy Red Shoes Lroi.
Or what's the witch in Wicked?
I don't know.
We went and saw Wicked. Uphaba ufala uphaba.
I don't know.
That's what Emily went as for Halloween. Anyway, the green Witch from Wicked. That would have been a good name too.
That's the Wicked Witch of the West.
I think, yeah, but she had a name. Chandeliers were brought in. He brought in fifteen chefs from France. He brought the chandeliers in straight from India, and then built the very famous, some may say infamous Crystal Room, which was a very over the top room full of crystals. It was, you know, made of glass. That was the building. If you've seen the very first Ghostbusters when Rick moranis runs up and bangs on the window before getting attacked,
that is the crystal room. And that's the part that I couldn't figure out. Like the room I ate in was all glass as well, and I think it was just a read sort of a different version of.
What that was exactly. Yes, they completely altered it. Yeah for sure. It wasn't like it was in the eighties where it was like in its heyday. It was also in other movies, Arthur, one of my favorites. It was in Beaches, the scene where they win that dance contest against the gangsters that are chasing them.
Yeah, ton of movies.
Yeah, it's really a well known dining room. But yeah, it's not there anymore. And one of the reasons why is because over the years warn of le Roy's taste started to kind of seem a little tech. Yeah. So yeah, but I think now if they had just preserved it, people I think more people would flock to it just because of the vintage thing.
You know, Well now they would because yeah, that kind of campy, kitchy thing is appreciated, but at the time not everyone appreciated it. Semi recently, I guess when it reopened they kind of look back and I got named. Pete Wells, a former restaurant critic for The New York Times, described that original Crystal Room as a wedding cake palace as imagined by a six year old princess with a high fever.
That is great, man. If you want to read great turns of phrase, just read restaurant reviews. They are so cruel but in the funniest ways. And that whole that whole review from twenty fourteen is just hilarious but also like you just feel bad at the same time for laughing at it. Yeah, totally, so under warn of le Roy's steerage like this. When Tavern on the Green became like the place where Patrick Bateman would want like a seat, and apparently the managers made pretty good money on the side,
accepting bribes to see people in the crystal room. It was like the place to be, and not just the eighties but also through the nineties too, so the whole place was riding high. As a matter of fact, I think in the nineties it was the highest grossing independent restaurant in the United States. Tavern on the Green was.
Yeah, they had revenues annually of more than forty million bucks, seating more than six hundred thousand diners a year, which is a staggering number of people. He got a pretty good deal. It was one of these things where when he came in the Central Park, was kind of dangerous, and like I said, the restaurant was on hard times. So he was really in the driver's seat as far as sort of saying, like, hey, give me a pretty good deal. Mayor ed Koch and he was pretty desperate.
The mayor was and the city was. So they let him build that crystal crystal room without you know, getting the necessary permit, which was apparently pretty expensive. And they said you only have to pay one point two million for the license fee, which apparently is a lot cheaper than the arrangement he had with Boum.
Yeah, and also apparently the crystal room expansion was illegal under municipal codes, and they did they look the other way without with them not getting a building permit to build it. Yeah, like they really were sinking a lot of faith into Tavern on the Green, bringing in a lot of revenue for the city, not just through the licensing fees, but you know, people traveling to New York in part to go dining at Tavern on the Green. That was like the way that it was viewed.
Yeah, should we take another break? Yeah, all right, we'll take another break and we'll come back and continue through the eighties and nineties.
Right after this learn and stuff with Joshua John stuff fu Shine up.
So another fact of Tavern on the Green at the time was that Leroy had a staff that was not unionized, so he paid pretty low wages for a long long time. It took a walk out in nineteen eighty nine over that low pay for the workers to finally get with the union the New York Hotel and Motel's Trade Council. But they were rolling in dough at the time, so they could afford those wages, and they were doing pretty well until two thousand and one. First of all, Warner
Leroy died very sadly in February of that year. Then nine to eleven happened, which put a dent on New York City as a whole. Yeah, and that's when Jennifer Oz Learoy Oz Dorothy Greenwitch Learoy had taken over. But it just wasn't happening. They just could not recapture that magic. The restaurant was never very well reviewed for the food, and it was starting to kind of matter because people weren't going just for the experience and food was just
a much bigger deal. And there were plenty of great restaurants by then, So the restaurant just kind of fell off by the mid two thousands.
I saw in Town and Country magazine, the go to source for facts about New York night life. Yeah, they said that the New York Times reviewed over like twenty three years or something like that. The New York Times reviewed tevern On the Green five times, and it never got more than one out of four stars. Yes, mean like that sounds like a vendetta almost.
You know, I do think it was had a bit of a bulls eye on it. I'm not saying like the food was ever like great, and it was just really unfairly reviewed, But I do think it was definitely a restaurant that critics wanted to kind of poke a hole in.
Yeah, it's just me.
Yeah, I know. So.
I think in two thousand and nine. There was a lawsuit in two thousand and eight against the management for sexual and racial harassment of female, black and Hispanic employees. It's not a good look for your restaurant. And then the next year the Parks Department said, we're kind of
done with the Leroy family. I think you guys have run your course, and they decided not to renew their twenty year license with the family, and so they announced that they would be taking bids and probably assumed that this was going to be the revamping, regeneration, a revitalization of Tavern on the Green, and it turns out that no one would go near it. They were like, I don't know, man, the place has a pretty bad reputation and it's going to cost a lot to bring it
back to its glory. And it set unused for five years.
I think, yeah, from twenty ten to twenty fourteen. It was five years not a restaurant, And like you said, it was just it was a big risk because it was a big expensive undertaking. It had never had a great reputation. I think it was always the target of critics, and so no one would go in. I think they tried a couple of times. It was a guy named
Dean Pole who ran the Central park Boatthouse restaurant. He tried to negotiate a good deal with the trade union, couldn't do it for six months, so he backed out. Other bidders were scared away, and so while it was vacant, Mayor Bloomberg said, well, let's make it a gift shop. So it was an information center and a center and tourist shop, and you know, there are a lot of people that are like just this once, you know, sort
of at least great. I don't know if a great restaurant, but great New York City landmark has now been turned into a chotchke shop or some of the complaints. So finally, in twenty twelve, the city said, all right, Philly, step in, we love you down there, New York City Light. What
if you got for us? And Jim Cayola and David Salama from Philly got the bid to reopen the tavern by investing ten million dollars to sort of get rid of Laroy's flashy thing and say, let's make let's take it back to the old school, nineteenth century tavern look.
Yeah, and they really did the actual like bar tavern area. They did a great job with Apparently they brought in architects who were good with discovering the actual historic part of any structure, and they did that. They stripped it down to its cathedral beams, the original ones in the ceiling. So I'll bet that looked pretty cool.
It does.
The bar was like studded with like brass nail heads is that correct.
Yep, I saw brass nailheads.
It's just like in the original stone fireplace, the original copper gutters, like they were all like just like they were just brought to the four and so the tavern vibe of the tavern itself. From what I read, they just nailed it. It was the crystal room revamp that I saw the most criticized. Really, I don't remember who said it. It might have been Pete Wells who said that it resembles an all day casual dining option at a family friendly resort in Florida. Disagree, Okay, Well you're
disagreeing with Pete Wells, not me. I'm just reading a quote. You know, I found pithy.
No, I know it is. It's that is pithy because because that room it is a it is a glass room with that that looks out onto the courtyard with those lights. It's a wonderful room to dine in.
Gotcha. Maybe it was because the serving staff has to wear Bermuda shorts and golf shirts tucked in.
Yeah the flamingo kid. Yeah, that bar area is gorgeous. Though the two guys for Phillykola and Salama, were some say cronies. The City suiteened the deal a bit. They Bloomberg put a lot of pressure on the trade unions to give them a two year break from having to sign a labor contract and to defer that licensing fee
for five years, which is a lot of money. And it turns out that Cayola's sister was married to and I think still is to a goy named Kevin Chicky, who was Bloomberg's former deputy mayor and an executive at Bloomberg Software Company. But he was like, that's that's all just coincidence.
Right, Yeah, I mean that's a couple of coincidences layered on top of each other.
Yeah, that's New York for you.
So one of the big one of the big parts about the reopening in twenty fourteen, which New York was excited about. I mean, this was an icon that had been shut down and no one was sure when or if it was going to come back. One of the things they did was they went through and took all of those amazing decorations that Warner Leroy had installed and they auctioned him off. Like you could get silverware, dinnerware, you could get some of the original copper weather veins.
They auctioned off for some reason, those chandeliers from the Indian Maharaja. You could buy those two. It sounded like it was a heck of an auction and they actually held it in the crystal room.
Wow.
Yeah, I would have liked to have known about that.
Yeah, I'd buy a fork for sure, for sure.
So they opened in twenty fourteen, and immediately every single outlet in New York panned the like, just panned it.
Yeah, here they go again. Some quotes comatose potato salad, roasted quail, that's as dry as a week old English muffin. They're all just so pithy.
Yeah. New York Magazine said that the salad is the kind that you would get a third rate country club, which Tavern on the Green pretty much is.
That's a man, I know, it's pretty bad.
Not even just a country club, a third rate country club. I mean, they're just being mean. I haven't seen any recent reviews. I know that the executive chef who was running the place when it opened, Katie Sparks, She laughed after I think like six months or something like that.
And from the restaurant reviews I read, they were saying like it's kind of understandable, Like they're creating these really extravagant dishes, at least on paper for seedings of like seven hundred people, and it's really hard to get well made hot food out to tables when you're serving seven one hundred people at a seating. So they were at least a little bit understanding. But I haven't read a recent review of Tavern on the Green and its food. Yeah,
so we're gonna have to rely on you. I guess as what you're saying.
Well, here's my review. It was fine. It wasn't like the food was It wasn't like the food was bad. It was like, oh, this is gross, but it's you know, it's just I mean, I'm looking at the menu here. We can read through some of these things. Appetizers. There's a crab cake, there's a calamari salad. There's a country salad, honey roasted figs that sounds pretty good.
Sure, steak of Dorset sheep, oh.
Man burrata with hearth roasted grape tomatoes. It's all pretty standard stuff.
Yeah.
And then if you move on to the mains, you've got some diversity. Scallops Scottish salmon for thirty eight bucks, grilled whole fish for forty six bucks, wrack of lamb, you know, fairly pedestrian, I think if I'm not miss Taken. I had the lemon thyme chicken under a brick.
Did you get to keep the brick?
Didn't get to keep the brick. It was a real tavern on the Green brick from the old sheeps Fold or sheeps hold that came with blistered green beans, smashed potatoes, and a jew for thirty five bucks. And it was like it was pretty good chicken. Okay, but you know, trefle fries, shrimp cocktail.
It's the menu.
Is not not Third Rake Country Club. But I didn't go in there expecting like New York's finest meal. I went there for the experience. We were in Central Park and that you know, you can walk right over there. I'd always wanted to go as a bucket list thing, and now I can say I've been, and I would very much recommend to have that experience. If it's something that like piques your interests, if it's like I've always wanted to try tavern on Green, like, go try it for sure.
Yeah. I think that's how New York magazine concluded their review, They're like, it's a once in a lifetime thing.
Yeah, go go once.
Yeah, that's pretty much what they said. And they even said if that so, yeah, hopefully it's gotten a little better. It sounds like it's gotten better. Was the food warm?
The food was warm, The service was good.
Okay, those are two things that definitely got called out in those twenty fourteen reviews.
Yeah, my martini was good.
Nice.
It's definitely touristy, Like I didn't expect the ghost of John Lennon and Warren Baty to come wandering in, so it feels a little touristy. But it was. It was good, It was fine. I recommend if you've never been to New York and you think and you're into the touristy thing, go for sure. If you go to New York a ton and you've never been, like, give it a shot. Your for one, ap your meals. You can always go eat somewhere better the next night. Okay, but it's cool,
it's worth going to. It's kind of like a Russian team room. I've never been there, but I want to try it. Just haven't you been there?
No, I've never been I think that was also a warner of the.
Okay, I thought you had been there for some reason, but like, I want to try that out just to sort of say that I've been there and know what that experience is like.
Same here, I've got some dining to do. Yeah, okay, well, you got anything else about Tavern on the Green?
I do not.
Well, thanks for sharing, Chuck, that was very nice. Sure, And since Chuck said sure, as everyone knows that, just unlock listener mail.
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