Classic Cocktails in Gramercy Park—The Living Legacy of Pete’s Tavern

Cocktails in Gramercy Park—The Living Legacy of Pete’s Tavern. Where Old New York Is Always New.

“As soon as I enter the door of a tavern, I experience oblivion of care, and a freedom from solicitude. There is nothing which has yet been contrived by man, by which so much happiness is produced as by a good tavern or inn.” Samuel Johnson, 18th Century British Author

The history of Pete’s Tavern is the history of New York City. In 1864 they opened their doors just south of Gramercy Park at the corner of Irving Place and 18th Street and have been continuously serving hot food and cold drinks ever since. Various trendy bars around town come and go but none can compare to the living legacy of Pete’s Tavern. This Lower East Side landmark predates the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge (1883), the dedication of the Statue of Liberty (1886), the invention of the hot dog (1901) and the popularization of the hamburger (1890’s).

In the early days, the bar was the ground floor of the Portman Hotel. Tom and John Healy purchased the establishment in 1899 and called it “Healy’s Café.” Peter D’Belles became the owner in 1922 and rechristened it Pete’s Tavern. The exterior and interiors have appeared on-screen dozens of times in productions ranging from the films Ragtime (1981), Endless Love (1981), and Across The Sea Of Time (1995) to television classics Law & Order, Sex & The City, Spin City and Seinfeld, among others.

Passing under the sidewalk canopy and through the gold-painted glass doors, you’re immediately greeted with the sense of stepping into another world from long ago that has somehow miraculously been preserved intact. Unlike the muted atmosphere of a museum, Pete’s Tavern buzzes with energy, very much alive and vibrant in the here and now.

A forty-foot rosewood bar stretches out to your left. Bottles of spirits stand in mirrored shelves under dark wood arches accented with polished brass and gold paint. Soft, yellow light from antique lamp fixtures bathes the long main room in a welcoming glow. A row of intimate wooden booths runs opposite the bar, followed by tables that lead to the two rear dining rooms.

Nearly every single inch of wall space is dedicated to framed photos of famous guests posing with friends at the tavern. Legendary musicians, A-list actors and influential locals smile out from every direction. You won’t be able to see every single picture up-close because the place is almost always very crowded, from early afternoon through the late hours of the night, seven days a week.

Pete’s original celebrity patron was the American short story writer William Sydney Porter, better known by his pen name of O. Henry. He moved to New York City in 1902 and spent the most productive and creative period of his writing career in the ensuing years while living at 55 Irving Place, less than two-hundred feet from the front door of Pete’s Tavern. It was there, sitting and drinking in the second booth from the front where O. Henry penned his most enduring classic, “The Gift of The Magi,” a bittersweet ode to true love first published in 1905.

Regarding New York City, O. Henry once commented, “It’ll be a great place if they ever finish it.” In modern times, not even O. Henry’s ghost can secure a table at Pete’s Tavern during the holidays, but if you’re patient, polite, and lucky, Gary Egan may be able to usher you into a coveted corner.

Gary has run Pete’s Tavern for thirty-seven years. He became a partner in the business in 1999 and has truly seen it all; the good, the sad. and the profound. Born and raised in Dublin, Gary made his way to the Big Apple via stints working demolition in London, pouring wine and cracking beers at a bar in the Opera district of Paris, and building luxury cars for BMW in Munich. He’s gregarious, finely attired, entertaining, articulate, and speaks five languages with just the slightest trace of an Irish brogue; Gaelic, French, German, Spanish and “Noo Yawk” English.

We met with Gary at Pete’s Tavern on a Friday afternoon where we retreated to a quiet booth in the rear dining room to discuss classic cocktails, changing tastes, and the rich history of New York City. Along the way, he shared insights acquired from nearly four decades leading Manhattan’s most renowned and enduring bar and restaurant.

Your name?

Gary. I’m here thirty-seven years. I came here in 1988 on a student exchange visa, and just like the old song, the M’s song “Pop Music” – “New York, London, Paris, Munich” – worked in them all.
What led you into the hospitality industry?

I’m in New York, it’s the only work… There’s three jobs you can get. You can get construction, you can try to be a doorman in a building or you work in a restaurant. I got hired here as a porter in the basement initially.

Here, at Pete’s?

At Pete’s. Only job I’ve ever had in my life in this country.

What makes Pete’s Tavern so special and beloved by so many?

I just said this to a group here yesterday, who do all these historic tours. When you realize stu like when this place opened, the only way to get to Manhattan was by boat, the Brooklyn Bridge wasn’t even here. We’re older than hot dogs, we’re older than hamburgers, you know, and it’s still here. That’s the cool thing about this place.

I remember years ago, saying to my partners, “Ah, we had a young crowd in last night! You know, like twenty-eight.”

“Well I hope you’re ID’ing everyone!” (was their reply). I’m like “You know, you don’t get it!”
We’re getting young people into this old place. So many restaurants I know have closed because their customers died. The regular customers just stayed with them and stayed with them and got old and died. You know, we just keep regenerating ourselves.

What are the most popular, or the signature cocktails here?

I make all these flavored simple syrups. So I do a raspberry thyme syrup, I do a blueberry rosemary, a blackberry sage and a strawberry mint. And we use those syrups in cocktails.

I mean look, we’re so known for the classics – the Old Fashioneds, beautiful well-shaken Martinis, straight up, great Manhattans. But these flavors now, these flavored spirits, you’ve got to get inventive with your cocktails.

It’s a lot of the stu going into those but we have a lot of classics. We make our own signature Negroni, you know, a nice Manhattan, a really well-made Old Fashioned, and of course the popular stu, the Aperol Spritzes, the Espresso Martinis, you know that sort of stu.

Very cool!

Yeah, but honestly we sell so much brown liquor now. So much bourbon, so much rye. It’s popular with women, it’s popular with the young people, it’s crazy, you know.

I mean going back to the 80’s, working behind a bar, a busy bar, if you touched a bottle of bourbon twice it was a lot. If you served two bourbons all night, you know. You didn’t touch rye. But now it’s huge.

What’s your personal favorite drink, when you’re not working here at Pete’s?

Bourbon. Love bourbon. Love an Old Fashioned, and that’s pretty much it, yeah. We get great bourbons here.

What are your favorite brands of bourbon?

I mean honestly, Pappy Van Winkle, it’s $1,500 a bottle. We get allocated bottles, so I always take a bottle home, you know and take some time with it. Yeah it’s great. Any of the Wellers are great. We have a great bourbon collection here. I only started drinking bourbon probably ten years ago.

What’s the best food on the menu?

Steaks. Burgers. We’re known for our burgers, we do a, we call it a Gramercy Burger, and it’s short rib, braised short rib.

Oh, wow!

Yeah, it’s a short rib blend, and we do a special sauce on that, which is our little signature sauce and some crispy onions. That does very well and steaks do very well. We do a lot of steaks here.

“To Europe, she was America. To America, she was the gateway to the Earth. But to tell the story of New York would be to write a social history of the world.” – H.G. Wells

For tourists coming to town, why should they make the time to come and visit Pete’s?

This city, when you think of New York City, Manhattan – it’s glass and concrete. This is the other side of it, you know. We’re old and brick, and old wood. It’s just, it’s something different.

I mean how many times are you going to walk around Midtown and look at skyscrapers? I mean it is what the city is and it’s beautiful, but this is, it’s a little different. You know, it’s a little step back in time.

There’s very little preservation of the old in New York. I mean if you look at a city like Paris, for example, you know they won’t build high anywhere in the city. The whole old city is left. Germany got destroyed in the war, Italy there’s a lot of old. There’s no old here.

I mean, basically the city’s only two hundred years old, really, you know? Give or take. And we’re one-hundred and sixty of that. I mean where else do you see Old New York? Exactly. And same question, but for locals and residents?

It’s just, honestly, it was like this when I got here and it’ll be here after I’m gone. It has this charm, this ambiance, this atmosphere. It’s just a fun place. It buzzes, you know.

What do you love about being involved in hospitality in New York City?

People. We get people at their best. Who walks into a restaurant pissed o and angry? You’re gonna eat, you’re gonna drink, you’re gonna socialize. I mean, people walk into the DMV, they’re pissed o. They walk into an IRS oce, they’re pissed o.

Me, I go out to buy suits, I’m pissed o. I have to change, I’m trying things on. Walking into a restaurant, you’re about to eat, you’re about to have some drinks, lighten up, loosen up. So, we get people at a ten. They’re on a ten on a one-to-ten.

And you know as I always say to my staff; you’re getting them at their highest point, you just gotta keep ’em there. Don’t piss people o, you know, be nice! And that’s what I love about it.

In a city that’s always changing so fast, how does it feel to be a historical landmark institution?
I mean, we’re older than everything! You know, honestly, when we were opened this was considered uptown. I mean to give you an idea, when we opened, we opened four years after they landscaped Washington Square Park. Washington Square Park was used as a potter’s field, for the yellow fever, so there’s all these unmarked graves.

So that was a potter’s field. They put a park there, in Washington Square, which is a mile, two quarters of a mile south of us, because they figured it was so far uptown, it was out of the way.

It’s just great, it really is. I mean this whole neighborhood, Gramercy Park, it’s stuck in its own little time warp, you know.

What do you love about the Gramercy Park neighborhood?

It is a true neighborhood, honestly. I live on 19th and 2nd, so I’m fortunate enough to live two blocks from the restaurant. I will walk – and it’s funny I get a lot of family that comes in from Ireland and you know, they’ll stay with me and my wife, and you’re walking around the neighborhood, and ten people, walking three blocks, ten people, “Hey Gary! How are ya? Hey, how ya doing? How’s the restaurant?”

You know everyone. What I love about Manhattan is all the little pockets. Another thing – I remember these guys used to come into the bar. I’m going back, 90’s, late 90’s. Two brothers, they’d always bring a big crowd in on a Friday night. The one thing about working behind the bar, you never notice, you never miss somebody until you see them again. And you’re like “Oh! I haven’t seen you in…?”

I guess we never noticed. These guys were great tippers, great fun, just a good crowd. You just hadn’t noticed they didn’t come in. Then around Christmas they come in and I said “I haven’t seen you in the longest time!”

They’re like “Yeah, we moved!” I’m like “Where did you move to?” They said, “32nd Street!” (laughs)
You know, an eight-minute walk. I think everyone stays in their own little neighborhoods. Gramercy Park, I think, you don’t feel like you’re even in Manhattan in this neighborhood. You know you walk along Irving Place, Block Beautiful at 19th Street (Editor’s Note: ‘Block Beautiful’ is the actual nickname for East 19th Street between Irving Place and Third Avenue), the park itself. You know, it’s very unique, it really is.

People always say to me “Oh! You’re from Dublin? You know I was in Ireland once; people are so nice!” I always stop them and I make a point of it, I say, “Not as nice as New Yorkers.”

I think New Yorkers are the nicest people on the face of the Earth. They will give you the shirt o their back. That’s why I stay here.

“If you don’t know history, then you don’t know anything. You are a leaf that doesn’t know it is part of a tree.” – Michael Crichton

Pete’s Tavern is located at 129 East 18th Street in Gramercy Park. They are open from noon until two AM every day. For more information and reservations, please visit petestavern.com.

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