Among the many attributes that
made The Tavern Restaurant in Newark's Weequahic section one of the most popular
dining spots in Newark, during the decades from the 1930s to the 1960s, were its
outstanding baked goods, and, in particular, the Tavern coconut cream pie 1.
Almost invariably, when I
discussed The Tavern on Elizabeth and Meeker Avenues with former patrons, they
would bring up the subject of the Tavern coconut cream pie.
Ultimately, the demand for Tavern
restaurant baked goods became so prevalent that proprietor Sam Teiger 2
built the
Tavern Pastry Shop next door in 1948, on the Meeker Avenue side of the building, to make
the Tavern's delectable baked goodies available to a wider public.
Following are a selection of
Tavern coconut cream pie anecdotes that give evidence of its wide popularity:
Five Tavern Coconut Cream Pie Anecdotes
1. When a Newark businessman, living in the suburbs, brought home a
Tavern coconut cream pie to his wife, who was an outstanding baker in her own
right, she conceded that the Tavern pie was out of this world.
The pie, in that era, was priced
at $2.50. The businessman thought the price might seem a bit high, so he
told his wife that it cost $1.50. At that price, she started soliciting
pie orders from friends and relatives for her husband to bring home with
him. After losing $1.00 on each pie, he confessed to his fib and dropped
the pie deliveries.
2. Anthony Wereta, recently discharged from World War II, was living in
a barracks apartment with his wife and children in Weequahic Park in the late
1940s. One of his fondest recollections of living in that location in
those years was the nearby availability of "the great coconut cream pies we
got at the Tavern."
3. New York City Mayor Ed Koch, a former Newark resident, wrote in his
1992 autobiography "Citizen Koch: that he was friendly at age 17 with
Donald Fischer, whose father was a part owner of the Tavern, "one of the
most popular Newark restaurants." "The Tavern," Koch
recalled, "was famous for its coconut cream pie and even after 50 years, I
still remember it as the best I've ever eaten."
4. The Young Men's Hebrew Club, a thriving Newark social organization
with several hundred members in the 1930s and 1940s still survives, but its
membership is now down to a bare half dozen surviving members, all in their 80s
and 90s.
They gather every weekday
afternoon after lunch for about two hours in the rented corner of a lounge at
the Union YM-YWHA on Green Lane, where they sit around a card table and silently
play cards. There is virtually no conversation.
I interrupted their card game
recently and told the seated players holding card hands that I was
planning to write a reminiscence about the Tavern Restaurant. I asked if
any of them had any Tavern Restaurant reminiscences to contribute.
I got one response, A player looked up from his card hand, pondered
momentarily, then turned his eyes heavenward, and murmured reflectively
"Coconut Cream Pie."
5. Bill Newman, formerly of Hawthorne Avenue, Newark, and now retired
in Margate, Florida, has an almost unbelievable coconut cream pie memory.
He was employed in 1958 with the
"Two Guys" company, formerly known as "Two Guys From
Harrison." The owner and his boss was Herb Hubschman.
Once when Hubschman was attending
a trade show in Chicago, he called his home office, asked for Newman, "and
asked me to do him a big favor."
"You don't say 'No' to your
boss, so I asked him what the favor was."
The 'favor' was to go to The
Tavern restaurant and buy a large coconut cream pie. Then, I was to take
it to Newark Airport, buy a ticket to Chicago, and personally go aboard the
plane and put the pie in the designated seat.
Newman continues: "I asked
three times, 'You want me to what, Herb?' Not only did I have it right, but I
was then to call someone at the Hilton Hotel in Chicago, give them the flight
number information, and they would go to the airport to meet the plane and pick
up the pie.
"As soon as I hung up,"
Newman continues, "I knew I did not have enough money to carry out the
favor.
"I caught one of the company
executives and explained my problem."
"Two Guys, he told me, has a
charge account at The Tavern, and between the executive, another employee, and
myself, we assembled enough money to pay the fare."
"Want to have some fun? Go to
an airline desk at Newark Airport and tell them you want a one-way ticket to
Chicago for a coconut cream pie. Then tell them further that you just want
to get on the plane and put the pie on its assigned seat, and then get right
off."
"Everything went as
planned. Well, almost everything."
"The plane arrived in Chicago
minus the pie."
"The pickup man said when he
asked the stewardess what happened to the pie, she just smiled and said
'Guess?'."
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Coconut Cream Pies Loved by GI's
Elliott Sudler, a retired Newark
pharmacist, related to me another Tavern coconut cream pie tie-in that he
experienced during his services in the United States Army, in 1951.
During the Korean War, he served
as a pharmacist with the First Army Medical Field Forces at Fort Lee, Virginia.
The officer in charge of the
military base mess hall, that fed 300-500 soldiers, was 22-year old David
Teiger, who was the son of Sam Teiger, owner of The Tavern Restaurant in Newark,
and a recent graduate of the Cornell University School of Restaurant Management.
Sudler recalls that Lt. Teiger was
extremely good at food preparation and highly skilled at making baked
specialties. Sudler who was familiar with Tavern desserts, thought that he
had either brought the Tavern Restaurant baked goods recipes with him, or that
they had been given to him, because the desserts at the base were "out of
this world" and the men were wild for the coconut cream pies and cheese
cakes that Lieutenant Teiger occasionally created for the GI food menu at the
Fort Lee Army base.
Email this memory to a friend.
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