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Neighborhood Cheer: Big TVs and Flowing Taps
IT’S not many a straight American man who will proudly and publicly proclaim his allegiance to “The Wizard of Oz.”
But there we were on a chilly November night in Ridgefield Park, N.J., in the Westside Village Tavern, a distinctly working-class bar nicknamed the Zoo. Dan Greco was bartending and had commandeered not one, but four of the five flat-screen televisions behind the blond-wood bar for that Technicolor classic. (He’d thrown football fans a bone, leaving a game playing on the fifth).
“It’s the Emerald City part!” Mr. Greco barked. “A little quiet, please.”
The command was superfluous; everyone was watching, even the kitchen staff, peeking around the saloon doors during down moments. A pleased Mr. Greco surveyed his happy kingdom, a hangout frequented by cops and ironworkers in a town where many people stay their whole lives. He chortled mischievously: “It would be great if the Good Witch’s skirt blew up and she was wearing a red thong. ‘Wizard of Oz 2010’!”
A customer — by the looks of him, all too regular — ambled by, slightly bleary-eyed: “I don’t even remember this movie. I know she gets home in the end.”
I have to think that the people in Dorothy’s neck of the woods would have appreciated the no-nonsense warmth of Bergen County places like the Zoo, and myriad similar bars dotting the towns and cities of northern New Jersey. This is where my mom grew up — Bergenfield — and where a number of my relatives still live, and it’s where I make regular bar-night outings, much to the perplexed amusement of some of my Brooklyn friends. It’s hard to verbalize the feelings of immense good will and well-being that suffuse me as soon as I slide onto one of the ample bar stools in places like the Cottage, Poitin Still or Stingers, flanked perhaps by my cousin Kathleen and my Aunt Pat. And that’s before the contents of the first glass kick in.
New Jersey stereotypes, long held in the tristate area (that means you, New York), are now well known everywhere, thanks to television shows like “Jersey Shore” and “The Real Housewives of New Jersey.” As Kathleen put it, “I loathe telling people when I’m working in New York that I’m from Jersey.” She rolled her eyes. “The reaction: ‘Oh.’ And this look of pity.” (Her friend Aly offered what is perhaps a more typically New Jersey perspective: “I like it when people make the face, because I know they’re judging me, but I don’t care.”)
But the garish clichés that so exasperate Kath have never been a New Jersey I recognized, even if she and her friends do sometimes come back from a summer at the Shore with terrifyingly dark tans. Sitting around a cozy New Jersey bar counter is nothing like going out in New York — it’s almost like sitting around the kitchen table. You come as you are and stay as long as you like. And conversation, if you’re inclined to have it, can be easily had, whether or not you know the person sitting next to you. The first word New Jersey brings to mind is “regular,” not in a bored-to-death suburban way, but as high praise regarding a person’s temperament.
“The New Jersey character — at least this part of Jersey — is straightforward, plain-spoken to the point of bluntness, though not at all unfriendly,” the poet August Kleinzahler wrote in his essay “East/West Variations.” “The humor is deadpan, ironical, playfully deprecating. It’s a beer-and-a-bump kind of place. Affectation is quickly and viscerally registered.”
Though he has long lived in San Francisco, Mr. Kleinzahler hails from Fort Lee, where he was anointed poet laureate in 2005. Nobody conjures more beautifully the moody, industrial character of an area defined by both its proximity to “the city” and its deep, rooted sense of place. New Jersey’s bedroom-community paradoxes seem very American: it’s a land of close-knit families whose restless younger generations have one eye trained across the Hudson, of stoic, anonymous commuters who return at night to bars where everyone knows your name.
Sometimes these places even name their specials after you: should you find yourself in Stingers Sports Restaurant, a fine establishment in Wallington, consider ordering Uncle Binky’s Beef Stew, named for my uncle William Ahearn (who actually prefers the shepherd’s pie). If you eat at the bar (and you won’t miss anything if you do; I counted at least 10 televisions, 6 of them strategically positioned over the liquor), his nephew John might just be the one serving you, so tip well.
And come prepared to eat. That is, unless you have issues with sodium intake. The portions are astonishingly generous at Stingers and the other bars, where the measly, quarter-filled wineglasses of some Manhattan establishments are unheard of. As Seamus Quinn, an Irish-born bartender at Poitin Still Irish Restaurant and Pub in Hackensack, said to me when I asked, perhaps ridiculously, whether ordering the buffalo wings and a Caesar salad would be too much: “ ‘Too much’ is relative.” It’s a philosopher’s answer if ever I heard one, and Mr. Quinn, 28, is actually at work on a philosophy book.
When I asked if bartending lent itself to writing philosophy, he nodded.
“In a small way, yes,” he said after thinking for a minute. “You get to see a full spectrum of people. This is the juncture where everyone meets. It’s a forum for cultural education.”
That night, a drizzly December Sunday, the juncture was slow and lazy. The Jets had played earlier that day, the Giants were postponed till Monday, and the mostly middle-aged men were mostly hunkered down over their food and beverages, talking quietly to their companions or casually eyeing the nearest television. (Poitin Still has nine by my count, mostly arrayed around its spacious rectangular bar.)
By Mr. Quinn’s estimation, the Still’s Irish atmosphere and hospitality are “the best in Bergen County.” Those are, of course, fighting words in a county where just about every bar lays some claim on Irishness. (The Still does bake a mean soda bread.)
The Cottage Bar and Restaurant in Teaneck, which advertises “the best pint of Guinness in Bergen County,” has been around a good deal longer than the Still. It’s smaller, darker and has even more of a neighborhood feel. (I’m told the bartenders have been known to pay a visit to my Aunt Pat and Uncle William’s porch after last call.) It’s the gathering spot for the Teaneck police and Holy Name Medical Center employees, making it a better place to find yourself in trouble than to start any.
I spotted only four televisions (but enough soccer paraphernalia tacked to the walls to accomplish a satisfactory visual overload), and one video-game monitor at the bar, with games like Quik Chess — “A Strategy Game” — and beer pong: “Sink it or drink it. An action game.”
I never caught the (also Irish) bartender’s name, but even before he’d poured my first glass of wine, I felt as if we’d established a bond.
“I know a girl who can do it with her mouth,” he said, gesturing to the bottle, which he had just uncorked the old-fashioned way. He paused for a moment, reflecting on the intimate nature of his disclosure. Then he grinned.
“That’s kind of rude; you’ve not even had your first drink. But it’s not like you’ve never been here before. You know how we roll.”
I’ve never met that girl. But I bet she’s a regular.
Running Up a Tab in Bergen County
THE COTTAGE BAR AND RESTAURANT 178 Cedar Lane, Teaneck, N.J.; (201) 692-0016, thecottagebar.net.
POITIN STILL IRISH RESTAURANT AND PUB 774 Main Street, Hackensack, N.J.; (201) 487-0660, poitin-still.com.
STINGERS SPORTS RESTAURANT 413 Paterson Avenue, Wallington, N.J.; (201) 933-6016, stingerssportsrestaurant.com.
WESTSIDE VILLAGE TAVERN 18 Paulison Avenue, Ridgefield Park, N.J.; (201) 641-9706, westsidevillagetavern.com.
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