August 12, 2025 • 51 mins
The Banter
The Guys talk about how to ruin a good drink.
The Conversation
The Restaurant Guys sit down with Rob D’Elia, the owner of iconic dive bar Ale ‘n ‘Wich Pub in New Brunswick, NJ. The ‘Wich has hosted a few celebrities and a lot of personalities over the years. They reminisce and talk about the je ne sais quoi of local bars.
The Inside Track
The Guys used to shoot darts at the Ale ‘n ‘Wich in college. In fact, it was where Francis had his first legal drink. They’ve watched it go through various phases and Francis asks who are the regulars now.
Rob: It's hippies, hipsters, artists, musicians, ink, LGBTQ, United Nations of Colors, professors, professors with their students who are over 21 that sit here and do discussions as part of a part of their class. Age? 21 to 60.. 65…70.
Francis: Notice he made it 65. Because I'm 60. I was at the limit. I got an extension there!
-Rob D’Elia on The Restaurant Guys Podcast 2025
Bio
Robert D’Elia is the owner of Ale 'n Wich Pub in New Brunswick, NJ, a landmark bar known for its historic charm and strong community ties. After a successful career in mortgage banking, D’Elia became a partner in the business in 2005 and took full ownership in 2012. He has since preserved the pub’s authentic atmosphere while making thoughtful updates, ensuring it remains a beloved local institution for students, artists, and longtime regulars alike.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
the-restaurant-guys_3_07- (00:11):
Hello everybody and welcome.
You are listening to theRestaurant Guys.
I'm Mark Pascal and I'm herewith Francis Shot.
Together we own stage left andKa Lombardi restaurants here in
New Brunswick, New Jersey.
We're here to bring you theinside track on food, wine, and
the finer things in life.
Hello, mark.
Hey, Francis.
How are you?
I'm, I'm doing well.
I'm thrilled that, that ourguest today is gonna be Rob
(00:32):
Aliya from the Ail and WitchPub.
We're gonna head over thereafter this nine minutes and
interview him in person on siteat a bar that you may not have
heard of, but is very importantto you and me.
It's gonna be an all NewBrunswick show today.
We're, we're happy about that.
Uh, today we have to talk aboutone of the most serious topics
that a restaurant.
(00:52):
2025 gonna be talking about.
Um, I, I'll bite.
What, what, what do we got?
We're gonna talk about ice.
Oh, okay.
No, not that ice, not the oneyou're thinking about.
Ice.
Ice behind the bar.
Okay.
ice behind the bar.
Francis and I have talked aboutit ad nauseum, right?
We've talked about how importantice is to have the right ice to
all those things, but I'm stillsurprised at how wrong.
(01:18):
Some places get it.
And you and I were at a weddingrecently and they had the wrong
kind of ice.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
They didn't have anyalternative, but they didn't
just have the wrong kind of ice.
and this, you really have to becareful about at a wedding or a
place where you, you have astandalone bar.
Okay.
Okay.
Where you have a bar that's likean auxiliary, oh, I know what
(01:39):
you're gonna say to your, toyour other bar.
so we had the, the really smallcubes that kind of bend
together.
So they, they all come togetherin the glass and they, they
really get a lot of fill on theglass and, and frankly add too
much water to the glass.
They were the half moons.
The half moons.
Mm-hmm.
So it wasn't just that they werethe half moons.
Okay.
(02:00):
It was, the bar was set up tooearly.
Oh, okay.
Yeah.
So the ice was melted.
So the half moons were half,half moons swimming in water.
So they were just, they werewet.
Okay.
Yeah.
And they, they weren't attemperature, right?
So they turned to water in onesecond.
Right?
An ice cube.
(02:20):
Can be 20 degrees below zero.
Right, right, right.
An ice cube can be very, verycold.
Right.
Right.
and then that coldness goes intoyour drink.
And depending on whattemperature the cube is and the
size of the cube decides howmuch water's gonna go into your
drink.
Right.
Well, the bar was tremendouslyadorned.
The bar had great productsbehind it, and I had a Macallan
(02:43):
12-year-old scotch and.
The bartender put this slushyice, so the scotch and water
into my drink.
I, I didn't, I, I could not havetold you 45 seconds into my
drink that I was drinkingscotch.
Really?
Yeah, I bet it was all water.
(03:03):
It was, it was, the drink was85% water, in, in a minute.
Well, you know, the funny thingis, and I think I want to
clarify how ICE works for thelisteners, and there's different
shapes of ice.
You, well, clarifying ice is, wedon't, that's, I don't wanna, I
don't wanna get that technical,I won't get that.
We won't get that technical, buthow ice works and you drink and
why, like the cold rocks don'twork in your drink.
If you ever saw the rocks thatthey, you sell for scotch
mm-hmm.
(03:23):
That you keep in your freezerand you put in your, in your
whiskey, the reason they don'twork is.
It's not just coming intocontact with a cold thing that
makes your drink cold.
Ice melting is an endothermicreaction.
So the act of the ice melting,oh, it's getting dorky, is
absorbing heat, right?
So if your ice is all but meltedand you've only got a little bit
(03:44):
left to melt and it's turns towater, you don't get a lot of
that reaction.
But if you've got nice.
Big, thick, cold ice cube, youget a little bit of cooling from
just having a, an even colderthan melting temperature.
Mm-hmm.
Ice cube.
And then you get all that meltthat comes in slowly and that
reaction keeps happening and itkeeps on cooling your drink.
But if it's all but melted, youget it in, it cools you, it
(04:06):
gives up the ghost.
Ah, and then, and then instead,and you just have water and it
stops doing the work.
Yeah.
So the, the reason those.
marble cubes in the bottom ofthe glass never really get the
scotch cold is because somethinghas to Mel, they don't melt into
the, they don't melt into thedrink.
And as soon as that ice is likeadding a little cold water to
(04:26):
your scotch is not the same asadding ice to your scotch.
That ice cube is a, is an engineof a certain size in relation to
what else is in your glass, andit's really important and.
It's hard to get, cateringplaces don't often get it right.
A lot of bars don't get itright.
There's a lot of really greatice out there now too.
Okay.
You can, I, I mean, I won't, I,I won't forget my ex, my first
(04:46):
experience we were, I was atDonovan Bar in London and I got
one of these perfectly diamond.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Ice cubes, well, not Japanesestyle ice diamonds, right?
Mm-hmm.
Right.
But it was perfect.
Mm-hmm.
Okay.
You would like, you would thinkthat somebody actually cut a
diamond, and they had this greatcocktail that, and they painted
the side of the glass, so thecolors were fracted through the
(05:08):
diamond and into the drink, andit was really interesting and,
fantastic in its own way, but.
The place.
Never forgot that.
The main purpose of that icecube Yeah.
Was to get it cold, was to coolthe drink and create a certain
amount of melt in that drink.
So yes.
Cool.
Interesting.
Fascinating.
(05:29):
Visually interesting.
All great.
But you still have to have theright amount of ice and melt and
coldness in your drink.
Well, and the thing is like,look.
You don't have to get intocalculating this at home, but if
you have like crushed ice, likegood cold, crushed ice mm-hmm
that's going to melt faster,chill your drink more, but ute
(05:49):
it quicker than one big cube andthen having regular sized ice
cubes versus one big cube thatit's going to melt at different
rates.
Providing more or less coolingfor a longer or shorter time,
totally geeking out.
All we're saying is ice matters.
Yeah.
It really does matter.
And as far as the clear ice,'cause this is all we're talking
about ice, it's it's actuallysolid matter.
(06:09):
It is, it is actually.
Okay.
It's one of the three states ofmatter.
It's, it's true.
so that's, that's very good.
Um, but I, I do wanna, it wasterrible, just like your
terrible joker earlier.
I was trying to be kind, so, butwhat I.
I want to talk about clear ice.
It's possible to make clear iceat home.
You can buy stuff@amazon.com.
Uh, if you want, I'm putting alink of this show.
I'll send you a link to what,what I use in my home
(06:30):
refrigerator to make big, clearice cubes.
It's really amazing.
Um, but if you, your ice cubesin the freezer, the reason they
get cloudy is'cause as thewater.
Crystallizes.
The gas that is suspended in thewater is released and it gets
trapped in the middle there, andthere's a way to deal with that.
As far as clear ice isconcerned, that's really just
aesthetic.
Mm-hmm.
(06:50):
But it's a beautiful aesthetic,and if you're having drinks, you
may as well do the aestheticthing, but your ice cubes at
home from an ice cube tray,those solid cubes of ice are
probably better than mostrestaurants use with their
hollow cubes or their halfmoons.
And it makes a pretty gooddrink.
And to the restaurant.
Out there.
Make sure you're constantlyputting new ice on top of your
(07:11):
old ice, in your ice binsbecause you, you're getting that
melt.
the change in temperatureshappening to the Cuban, you're
causing your ice to melt toofast.
Well, and what's, and what'salso happening is if you are in
the, in the business, if youhave ice in a cooler, you've
done this at that party at home,not, I'm not pointing Mark.
Mm-hmm.
I'm pointing at The podcastworld, you've done this at home.
If you have, he's shaking hisfinger too.
Be careful.
If you have a cooler of ice athome and you wanna get your
(07:34):
beers cold in it, you let theice kind of melt, you throw some
water in there so everythingsloshes around and the water
conducts the cold to your beers.
But if you wanna have ice tomake drinks at home, open that
little plug in the bottom'causeyou want the water to drain out.
As it as it goes, so your icestays dry.
So the way commercial icemachines work, ice bins, uh, is
ice bins.
(07:54):
So the machine drops it into abin and there's a drain on the
bottom and it slowly melts outand, and drains out from the
bottom.
And we keep getting fresh ice onthe top, but the ice is always
dry in the bin, in therestaurant.
There's a drain on the bottomthat the ice is always dry in
the bin.
And a lot of catering places,'cause they have a rolling bar,
they don't have a separation,which you can get to get that
(08:17):
water away from the ice.
So that refresh ice is as isnecessary, but it really makes a
huge difference.
So the quality of the drink.
So Francis, I would just likethe entire.
Guest list of the restaurantguys to know exactly how
persnickety I am.
Okay, so last night had a, amixers, uh, 10-year-old rye, and
(08:38):
I wanted a big ice cube to getit cold.
And so I had a big ice cube inmy mixers, 10-year-old rye
uhhuh, but then it got to justthe perfect dilution and perfect
coldness.
So I had to reach into my glassand take the what was left of
the giant ice cube out of myrye, so that I would, so that it
wouldn't melt anymore and makeit, and make it more dilute.
(09:01):
You could talk to 90% of theworld and they would think that
that made you persnickety.
You know that I do that everyfricking time.
I, it's like, ah, perfect rightnow.
Yeah.
And you know what I do sometimesis I take it out and I put it on
the side or from the SidewalkCafe.
Mm-hmm.
I'll just throw it in theplanter.
Yeah.
You just, ice is a tool and.
I gotta get it outta my drinkand I'm not afraid to use my
fingers.
Oh no, absolutely not.
It's just ice.
It's just water.
It's clean.
(09:21):
Alcohol kills the germs.
Well, if this conversationhasn't left you cold, uh, stick
with us.
We're gonna talk, we're gonnatalk to Rob.
Elliot made me groan.
You made me groan.
we're gonna talk to Rob Deliafrom the Ail and Witch Pub in
New Brunswick, New Jersey, whichhas been here for a very long
time.
And it's where Francis had hisfirst legal Guinness at about 10
minutes after midnight on his21st birthday.
(09:43):
We'll be back in just a moment.
You can always find out moreabout the restaurant
guys@restaurantguyspodcast.com.
the-restaurant-guys_1_07-17 (09:49):
Hey there everybody.
Welcome back.
Today you are with therestaurant guys on site at the A
and Witch Pub in New Brunswick,New Jersey.
We are with the owner Rob Delia,who is a friend of ours for a
long time, and the A and WitchPub is an institution in this
town and it's actually the.
The bar where I had my firstlegal drink on my 21st birthday,
(10:13):
and Mark and I are sitting herewith Rob and we have three
Guinnesses poured in front ofus.
And so a Hail and Hardy Slan,aka.
Rob Delia, welcome to the show.
Well, thank you very much.
Uh, what I want to know is howmany illegal drinks did you have
here before he turned year orso?
Statute limitations is, let'sremember that 1985 licenses were
(10:34):
still made of paper, so.
You know, as long as yourphysical characteristics were
close, you could hand somebody apaper license.
The statute of limitations isover.
The guy, there was a guy, uh,the head of me in school, his
name was Brad Anthony, and heloaned me his paper license and
then I got the backupdocumentation.
I started coming here when I was20, and then it was my 21st
(10:55):
birthday and I lived severalblocks from here.
I lived on French and SeamenStreet and at, at a big party.
And Mark, you were at the partySo midnight on March 14th, we
walked down with my sisters andI had my first legal drink here.
And, uh, and so my name changedfor Brad Anthony to Francis Shop
on that night.
It was great.
It was a great time and I, Ithink we first met either the
(11:18):
late eighties or the earlynineties.
I think it was the lateeighties.
Back then, it was, I remember itbeing July, we had an air
conditioner over the door.
We had an air conditioner in thewindow, and there's Francis
leaning up against a jukeboxthat was in the game room in
jeans and a leather.
Motorcycle jacket.
Oh, for sure.
I was so in, in July.
I, I was, I had taken mymotorcycle safety first.
(11:39):
Man.
It was a and and you didn't wantsee what was under No, like he
was a pencil neck geek.
So he had the, kept themotorcycle jacket on.
Took that, I had long hair.
It was a shot perfecto jacket.
And if you wanted to pick upgirls in the Allen witch pub,
that's how you dressed.
That's what in July.
It was safety.
First it was for safety.
And that's the same jacket thatyou.
Or having a party at your houseand somebody reached in through
(12:00):
the window on the fire escapeand stole that jacket.
That's why we need local barowners, everybody, because you
have all the stories.
So that Indeed was the samejacket I, rode all around
America on my motorcycle withthat jacket, and I lived at a
different house, wasn't it, overhere?
86 Lewis Street, which doesn'texist anymore.
I stopped on my way here andit's just been torn down But I
(12:21):
had, you would think that itwould become a historical
landmark.
I know at this point.
I know, right?
Know.
so I had my jacket on thekitchen table, but it was close
to the kitchen window, and somekid reached in, grabbed the
jacket off the kitchen table,and ran with it.
Fortunately, Brian Mack, uh,who's a friend of ours, a
departed friend of ours, rest issoul.
but he was a pool hustler and heused to hustle pool up at
(12:43):
Patrick's, so he knew all thelocal scumbags.
And so he's like, so, so I tellthe story, I'm at work.
He worked for us at, at stage,left and tell us the story says
stuff, and Brian Mack shows upwith my jacket two days later.
I'm like.
Where did you find that?
He's like, ah, Patrick's, youknow, I found out who stole it.
I bought it back from him.
You owe me$7.
(13:03):
I was insulted by how little Ihad to pay to get it back.
$7 back then you could drink allday at Patrick's.
You could probably drink all dayat Patrick's now at$7.
but this bar, it's, well it'sbeen an institution in this town
forever, right?
I mean, literally before we werehere, this bar was here.
Before any of us were here, thisbar was here.
(13:23):
Yeah.
And the building has, you know,history.
As well.
And it goes back, it was otheriterations before it was built
in 1907.
It was originally a tailor shopon the main floor.
And they were European, theylived, their apartment was where
the pool room was, was theirbedroom, uhhuh.
And their kitchen is where thegame room is.
And the only bathroom was wherethe ladies' room was.
(13:45):
No shower, no tub.
And from there it became a dry,good store.
And then in 1934 it became theHamilton Grill and the pool room
was where the band would sitbecause if you didn't have a
quartet.
Playing.
You couldn't serve liquor.
You.
No.
You weren't getting anybusiness.
Every really, if you ever lookin those old New Brunswick,
guide magazines.
Yeah.
Magazines and guides.
They have, everybody had a trioor a quartet plane.
(14:05):
Mm-hmm.
I mean, Hamilton Street was allbars.
All bars all the way down.
Well, it's so we've had a greatresurgence here in New
Brunswick.
It's been really terrific.
So that was the case back then,right?
You always had live musiceverywhere.
'cause if you wanted music, itwas live music, right?
And.
There's a group called NewBrunswick Jazz Project, and they
brought live music back to the,the downtown.
(14:27):
The downtown.
To the downtown.
Well, we're not, we're not in adowntown right now.
Right.
But we're only, you know, threequarters of a mile away, brought
live music back to the downtown.
It's, it's added so much energy,I think, to the city.
Yeah.
To, to know that you're gonnahave live music three or four
days a week.
Well, but what I wanna say aboutthis place, so for those of you
who are listening, and may we'llpost some pictures up, or maybe
we'll throw some stuff onInstagram so you can see.
(14:48):
This place.
And I know I may be prejudicedbecause this is the first bar.
Oh, I know.
You're pre prejudiced about thisbar for sure.
Yeah.
I, because it was my first bar,Uhhuh and it was my local,
right.
So I lived within a few blocksof, here Francis moved like four
times.
Yeah.
while he was in New Brunswick.
But he made sure never to bemore than two blocks away, which
he basically, this was thecenter, but, and he just, and he
(15:10):
just rotated around this, this,this, but it was where everybody
knew your name.
Every, and you, I knew everybartender from, so when I first
started coming here, the barmanager was Alex v God bless
Alex.
And, uh, he has also passedaway.
I'm hard to say sadly, but Alexbecame a good friend of mine,
uh, and I, I turned 21, uh, andgot a job as a bartender at the
(15:32):
frog and the peach the samemonth.
And so once you're a bartender.
In the bartender's bar, youknow, and I used to stop in and
I would stop in because you guyshad a dart board.
Mm-hmm.
And I love darts and I still do,and I know, but I wanna talk
about that.
So I, but I would come in andplay darts before going to work
and drink club soda and hang outwith Alex.
(15:52):
And then I would come after workand, and drink.
But this was a, and drag whoeverwho, whoever, whoever would come
with him, he would drag to playdarts.
But, but the thing about it is,this is a.
Absolutely.
We talk about what's a real bar,what's a real Irish bar?
What's a real authentic place?
You sit down in this place andyou simply know that it feels
(16:12):
like it's always been here, andit feels like when I walked into
this place for the first time in1985, mark and Jen, you guys
feel the same way.
Yeah.
No offense.
It looks a little bit like thesame place.
Yeah.
You know, we, we try to maintainthe look.
But when I first walked in,which was also in the eighties,
um, being from Jersey City andfrom being from a neighborhood
where there was literally a barin every corner mm-hmm.
(16:34):
I walked in, I looked around, Iwas like, where am I?
I know.
I feel like I've been herebefore.
Yeah.
I never was before.
Yeah.
And I've never left.
And it said local and, andpeople use this now and, and I
think the terms actually becomean ingratiating term now.
Right.
It's a, it's a term ofendearment.
dive bar.
Oh yeah.
It's the dive bar.
Okay.
It is, this is the mostauthentic dive bar.
(16:55):
In New Jersey maybe, butcertainly in New Brunswick.
I like to consider it aglorified dive bar.
We were a couple of years ago,the number, the uh, number five
dive bar in New Jersey accordingto New Jersey magazine.
Mm-hmm.
Right.
Which, which was, which wasgreat.
Um, you know, they say whatmakes a dive bar weird things
hanging on the walls that younormally, would you have that
wouldn't say, we've got plentyof that.
That's a mighty duck banner, Ibelieve.
(17:16):
Uh, yes it is.
Uh, some of my bartenders arediehard ducks fans, but, um, you
know, we've have, we haveeverything except.
The dog laying in the corner,which we used to have.
I remember the dog.
Oh yeah.
Laying in the, but you know, thething about it is though I've
seen people open, quote unquotedive bars and try to make them
look like an old bar and put abunch of crazy things on the
(17:38):
wall.
This is stuff that has justcollected over.
Decades.
And maybe each thing wasn't thatweird as it went up, but now
it's like, oh, you can't touchthat.
You know?
Yeah.
And you know, it's, it's a, it'sa, people give us stuff.
They say, I'm graduating, I'mnot, you know, I'm moving, I'm
going to med school orsomething.
And they go, can, can I give youthis?
(17:59):
This was in my apartment.
Can you put it up in the bar?
I'm like, yeah.
So it winds up, winds up on the,winds up on the top shelf up
there.
That's fantastic.
Uh, you know, the, the bigpicture of that gentleman, he
had his, uh.
He was a Rutgers student.
He had his 30th birthday partyhere and everybody had those
faces and he says, can I putthis up on this box?
I'm like, yeah, sure, you canput it up there.
So I remember when I was acollege student, this was a bar
that didn't seek out collegestudents, and to the extent it
(18:22):
sought out college students, itdidn't seek out mainstream
college students.
So, through the years as I wascoming here, it was an old man's
bar in the afternoon.
And what's ironic about that isI snuck in here as an underage
kid, and now I'm an old mansitting in the old man's bar
thinking about those old guys.
I am now an old guy.
Um, but you know, there were oldguys at be here in the
(18:43):
afternoon.
It was a lesbian bar for awhile.
A lot of, there was a biglesbian contingent around that
pool table, which is a, a minipool table.
Then it was a college studentbarber that it was like artists
and hippies and deadheads andnot the frat fraternity college
avenue.
Which, which which we have herein town.
Different, different downtown.
I worked in one of them, so, youknow, back in, back in college.
(19:05):
But why has this been alwayskind of a off the beaten path,
not the mainstream.
And is it still, it it, youdon't.
Students don't know about usunless another student tells'em
or if they live in theneighborhood.
Mm-hmm.
Right.
Um, I, you get people that maybe in their fourth year of
college and they'll, they'llmove in, they'll move in
somewhere on Hamilton Street andthey go, I never knew this place
(19:26):
existed.
Yeah.
You know, and, you know, thatkind of hurts.
But older brothers and sisters,you know, pass it down, parents
pass it down.
We did a, that's, did a, uh,graduation party in June, end of
May, June, and.
The father did it over thephone, didn't recognize the
name, didn't recognize thevoice.
He walked in.
We just looked at each other andpointed a fingers at each other.
(19:48):
He goes, I know you.
He goes, you were my bartenderwhen I was in college.
I says, yeah, I'm the owner now.
That's great.
And so, so it gets passed downand, and his daughter hung out
here the entire time.
All.
Well, I will tell you what hurtsmore than that.
Is we're now gettinggrandchildren of the people who
came in 30 years ago coming intoour, coming into our restaurant.
Yeah.
Right.
Oh boy, that's rough.
So, you know, one of the thingsthat I remember from, in the
(20:08):
days of yours, you used to havea pinball machine as pinball
machines were going away.
Mm-hmm.
I see.
If we don't have that anymore,it's hard to keep pinball
machines.
I, you know, I want ones.
The, uh, the video guy, Lou, thevideo guy, he, uh, says it, it's
not worth it.
He goes, they break down.
Mm-hmm.
Too much.
You can't get the parts anymore.
Right.
Um, so, you know, we're, we'restuck with what we have.
I mean, we have foosball and wehave an original Miss Pacman I
(20:30):
saw that's analog, not digital,and it's a big difference.
Mm-hmm.
And, you know.
One of the few, other thanPatrick's, I don't think any
other, the bar in New Brunswickhas a pool table.
Well, um, the thing that Iremember you had for a long
time, and these aren't reallyrelevant anymore, but you guys
had a jukebox.
Sure.
And what I loved about thejukebox here was it was this
crazy mix and it was real vinylinside the jukebox.
(20:51):
And it was a crazy mix of likethe most contemporary European
bands that were, you know.
Not widely available here.
A lot of cool music, a lot oflike Steppen Wolf and, uh,
little bit of Joan Jett, alittle bit of Joan Jett.
But there was a little sectionof, and this is before you owned
the place of forties music, andmy father's favorite, second
(21:13):
favorite song.
And my favorite song was alwaysMoonlight Sarah Knight, made by
Glen Miller.
And every time I came in here, Iwould play Moonlight Serenade by
Glen Miller.
nobody else ever playedMoonlight Serenade by Glen
Miller.
So it got to the point where thewhole bar would groan whenever
and, and then somebody would belike, oh my God, Francis is
here.
(21:33):
All right.
So I want, so all of you now whoare listening can.
Go Google Moonlight serenade andrealize really how old Francis
is.
Oh, it was great World War ii,man.
It was, uh, it was a differenttime.
Um, so I love the island witchpop, but back in the day there
were some people that hung outhere.
What time you gonna say back inthe day?
The show today?
A lot.
I think.
A lot.
(21:54):
Um, but back in the day, we, youhad, we had some.
Pretty famous people or peoplewho weren't yet, they had some
famous people.
Mm-hmm.
And you had some people whoweren't yet famous, who were
gonna be famous, who just hungout so, so Mario Vitali was in
this bar before and I knew him,but when he was cooking it stuff
Your face stuff.
Your face.
Yeah.
James Gal Feeney used to hangout here all the time.
(22:15):
Right.
he was roommates with abartender, a friend of our
mutual friend of, right.
Well, it wasn't roommates.
He lived on the couch.
He lived on the couch.
Rent free.
It's, that's the room.
That's a room.
A room right here, right.
Brookside.
What the, what are theapartments?
Yeah.
Brookside Terrace.
Brookside Apartments.
Brookside apartment.
That's where Alex lived as well.
And then, uh, you had JerryGarcia made an appearance here.
Jerry Gar.
We have Jerry Gar.
(22:35):
Jerry Garcia, the Grateful DeadPlead the um.
The rack, I think, was that whatit was called at Rutgers?
The rack, the Rutgers of thecenter.
And, and as much as God blessBob McGee as much as Bob McGee
hated the Grateful Dead andhated all the hippies that hung
out here,'cause we went througha hippie phase and uh, they.
He wound up here after the show,sat in the corner at the old
(22:57):
table.
The old table is still upstairs,still get young kids coming in.
Hey, my dad told me you got atable that Jerry Garcia sat up.
I said, really?
Yeah, yeah.
Take him upstairs.
They take a picture next to thetable.
That's awesome.
But yeah, that's it.
And Jim Babak and um, the bassplayer whose name escapes me
from, the Smither rings.
Mm-hmm.
They lived above what was thelawyer's office across the
(23:19):
street.
Smiths spent a lot of time inNew Brunswick.
Yeah.
They were here a lot.
The, uh, nobody knows who theSmither arenas are except people
precisely our age.
So great band, but they were agreat band, new Brunswick
centered to be fair to BobMcGee.
And, you know, having the, thehippies are not known for their
massive tipping.
Yeah, that's true.
Bob McGee was the manager.
So after Alex and Bob became themanager, Bob McGee became the
(23:41):
manager, you know, did a lot ofthings for the witch that are,
that are still here.
He was amazing.
They were both amazing, amazingguys.
Amazing guys Gone way too young.
Yeah.
A lot of influences in the barthat, uh, they both put here
that are still here.
Because when I took over it was,it wasn't about changing
anything.
It was about making it cleaner.
Maybe Yes.
(24:03):
Ask James.
Okay.
The smell's gone.
You did it.
Congratulations.
That's because the cats and thedogs are gone.
Nothing against cats and dogs.
It smell like a dirty old man.
Yeah, exactly.
And an old man bar.
Um, I wanted it to be the samebar you have.
It didn't want, didn't want itto change.
And so I, I tried real hard toget, added some new things, did
some things differently.
(24:23):
Uh, but basically if you walkedin here and you hadn't been here
30 years.
You would sit down and go, it'sthe same bar.
and you know, it's interesting'cause I think some places
become a museum of their formerself or a shadow of their former
self.
This is.
What it's always been, it's asvibrant and alive and as part of
the community as ever.
So I'm gonna remind Francis ofsomething.
(24:45):
Uh oh.
We did here about 25 years ago.
Dude, there are so many thingsyou could remind me of that I
don't necess, this is not 25years ago.
Okay.
Alright.
Uh, we had the staff Christmasparty here.
Mm-hmm.
I remember you guys opened earlyfor us.
Mm-hmm.
And we did the staff Christmasparty from like, I don't know.
Four to seven, something likethat.
And then you guys opened atseven and, and staff could do
(25:06):
what they wanted and we, webrought the staff in here and
they raised some holy hell and,not all good things happen.
Well, we left and let them andlet them all become your
problem.
Um, did you, did you take yourcredit card with ufo?
Yeah, we closed the tab andleft, closed the tab and left.
And we had a no shots rule whilewe were here.
I don't know what they didafter, of, so you are a part of
the community.
You're, you're dialed into NewBrunswick yourself and before
(25:28):
you, Bob McGee was dialed intothe community and so was Alex
vs.
But I remember the interestingpeople behind the bar.
You would come here.
And Alex, who just kneweverything.
And Alex was a genius.
When he left bartending, he wentand became a professor in like
three years.
Yeah.
Unbelievable.
And then, um.
Bob McGee was a, was a savant.
(25:49):
He, bob was everything aboutsports.
Every ev photographic memory,who wants to be a millionaire?
Bob McGee would be my guy tocall.
Oh, yeah.
Best question.
And what I loved about him, hehad tons of energy too.
He was just a super energy.
And he was also like a reallytall, really good looking guy.
Yeah.
And being a young, tall, goodlooking bartender.
You're never bored on your nightoff, you know what I'm saying?
(26:09):
But what he used to do is we'dcome in and one of my, he would
put people in their placebecause you have the, the
dartboard you have, which isvery important to mm-hmm.
Making the bar a bar.
Um, he would, he was such a gooddart player.
He would literally be behind thebar, lean out over the bar.
Throw three bullseye and beatyou without stepping out behind
(26:31):
the bar.
And it was always great to watchhim sucker somebody new into 20
bucks.
You want to talk aboutSuckering?
Jeopardy.
Jeopardy was big here.
Yeah.
When we were open very early andhe would come down and he would
start rattling off answers Rat.
And the the final jeopardyquestion.
Wasn't.
Two years later we found out hewas watching it a half an hour
(26:52):
early upstairs, because we hadthe dish.
He was watching it out ofPhilly, I love, and then he
would come down and he wouldjust go, oh yeah, I never knew
that.
Oh yeah.
Oh yeah.
That's amazing.
I never knew that.
That's amazing.
But he did a good memory of, hewould do the same thing with
Pete, uh, my ex partner's, uh,dad.
He, Pete would come down andwatch the races.
(27:13):
Bob had already seen the races.
Oh my goodness.
And he would go to Pete.
What'd you bet Pete?
Nah, nah, that horse is gonnawin.
Nah, he's not gonna win.
That's, and, and then people arelike, you gotta come with me to
OTP.
You gotta come with me to tb.
Oh, that's really funny.
So, so let's, talk about yourex-partner and his dad.
He used to live upstairs?
Yes.
He, he lived upstairs.
He, he, he mopped the, the barevery day.
Took a hundred dollars out ofthe register every morning, went
(27:35):
to OTB in Staten Island.
Wow.
And we get, we get phone calls.
You're a hundred dollars short.
Check your father's ticketstubs.
That that Pete lived up.
Pete lived upstairs.
That is so old school.
That's old school.
That's awesome.
Right?
We would have to, I mean this isback in the day when we would,
we would stay here after the barclosed, till the sun came up and
(27:56):
you knew it was time to leavewhen you could hear Pete
upstairs shuffling.
Oh, that's awesome.
You hear, hear speech.
We gotta get outta here and,and, and, and we would run,
because we were the hospitalitybar.
Yep.
Uh, for a very, very long time.
Oh yeah.
The bar, the bartenders were inthe, you know, when the bar was
open till 3:00 AM and the, thebig saying was, if you don, you
know, uh, bar's closed, yougotta leave.
Unless you work for a restaurantor a bar, you can say, yeah.
(28:17):
And, turn the lights down lowshut the music off.
The statute of limitations hasexpired.
City officials are listening.
We don't do that anymore.
Nobody, nobody would bother us.
From, and you knew to, you knewyou had to be quiet.
You know, you couldn't getrowdy.
You couldn't go out on thestreet and start screaming at,
at five o'clock in the morning.
It was civilized.
I remember.
So we talk often about SashaPetrowski who had milk and nunny
mm-hmm.
(28:37):
In New York City and how he was,one of the reasons he became
quote unquote speakeasy is'causehe was afraid his neighbors were
gonna shut his, shut him down.
And his landlord was a friend ofhis.
He said, if you disturb theneighborhood, I'm going to not
renew your lease and you're gota one year lease.
It was the same way here at theAllen Witch.
Absolutely.
It was a more mature crowd.
People took care of the bar, andI know there were some nights
(28:57):
where there was somebody whoworked the door check IDs and be
kind of security.
It wasn't anybody beefy.
Mm-hmm.
But it was somebody who could.
Yep.
You know, you never want oneperson to be alone in a bar.
Right.
Because if somebody hits thebartender over the head.
What do you do?
Um, but there were nights whenthis place would have just the
bartender in it, but it wasokay.
'cause if you mess with thebartender, 36 regulars, yeah,
(29:18):
were gonna take care of thefucking problem.
There's, there's quite a fewnights where I, I had to face
somebody down and I, you know,I'm shaken, but I'm, you know,
this is my house.
This is, these are my rules.
You can't do this here.
Right.
And then the guy backs down andI turn around, there's like four
people standing up.
Alright.
Thank you.
I, I know enough to keep armslength away from anybody that
might punch me.
(29:38):
Yeah.
I, I, uh, I will tell you, Iknow for sure that Francis and I
left this bar some nights andwe, and we would walk outside
and go, Hey, we gotta be quietbecause the neighbors of the
plane.
All right.
Speak for yourself.
Yeah, speak for yourself.
I do know I was here one nightwith a friend of mine got thrown
out and literally I am the mostregular, regular of regulars in
(30:00):
this bar.
And I thought that I was gonnaget thrown out because I, it
was, it was a, a friend of oursnamed Bill, who's a wonderful,
intelligent, he's a successfulguy.
He is.
And just this one night he went.
Way over anduncharacteristically, he started
singing the Rutgers song on thebanks of the, the old, old Raan,
(30:24):
except his version of it was onthe banks of the old Raan, on
the banks of the old Raan.
I don't know the goddamn words.
I don't know the goddamn wordsand the banks of the old very
10.
But why we got thrown out is hegot the whole bar.
Way too rowdy singing that.
And they were like, you gottaget your friend outta here.
(30:45):
Think we got another Bob McGeesomebody.
I mean, the songs were on thejukebox, and this is probably
when we had CD Jukebox and therewere many, many songs that
annoyed Bob McGee and a songwould come on, Bob would pause
it and go, who played that song?
And somebody be very practicallyRick Hand.
Hand.
I did.
Get the fuck out, get out of thebar, come back tomorrow.
Don't ever play that song again.
That's classic.
(31:06):
And and they would look at Boblike he's kidding.
Right?
And people regret No, Heylisten, we're gonna take a quick
baker and we're gonna come backon the other side.
We're gonna talk more with RobI'm gonna get myself another
Guinness and we're gonna hangout at the Allen Witch Pub in
New Brunwick, New Jersey.
We're gonna let you know how toget to the Ellen Witch Pub in
the show notes, and after thebreak we're gonna give you a
chance to win Alan Witcht-shirt, even if you don't live
here, we'll be back in just amoment.
(31:28):
Hey everybody.
Welcome back.
We with Rob Delia at the AllenWitch Pub in New Brunswick, New
Jersey where you need to come.
Do you have a website?
Yes, we do.
It's ww ww dot a n witch.com.
Also on Instagram, that's lal,the letter, N-A-L-E-N as in
Nancy, WIC h.com.
witch.com.
Mark (31:46):
So Rob, I'm not sure if you know this, but one of the
old regulars from when I went tocollege and a little bit after
from this bar guy by the name ofBrett Andres, and opened a bar
called the Ale and Witch,W-I-T-C-H, fraternity brother of
mine.
Really good guy.
Really good friend, and it'sbeers and live music.
(32:07):
He loved your name and he lovedthis place so much and he stole
it.
Well, he changed it from, yeah,from like the, the little
sandwich version to theW-I-T-C-H.
And it was total homage total.
Like he loved this place so muchthat when he opened his own
place,
Rob (32:23):
did he survive COVID.
He did.
That's a shame.
He's still there.
No, I I, I know, I, I've seenpictures of it and it looks like
a really, really cool place.
Yeah.
It's got an outdoor patio that'sa place right outside of it and
stuff.
That's that place.
And, and I had been back, uh, Ihad been in touch with him.
He never told me of, of theconnection.
That's like when, uh, I guess Icould talk about this'cause it
no longer exists.
The Ale House on George Street.
(32:43):
George Street, El House.
Yeah.
I, I saw, I saw their logo.
I called'em up, I go, Hey, haveyou ever seen our logo?
Yeah.
They're like, they're like, oh,you know,'cause they were trying
to capitalize on a and witch alehouse thinking like, you know,
ale House comes before, youknow, ale and witch if somebody
Googles it, but God bless Googleyou, you put in bar in New
(33:03):
Brunswick or a pool table.
Which pub right at the top ofthe, but you should feel really
good about it because
Mark (33:08):
Brett
Rob (33:08):
loves you guys.
He loved you guys, and it was atotal homage to, Hey, this is
the one of my favorite placesI've ever been.
So let me try and try andrecreate this in.
Well, if you, if you talk tohim, tell him I'd love to stop
in there.
I just need two first classtickets.
Yeah.
A hotel for a week.
A private driver and that soundsfair.
(33:29):
And everything on him.
That sounds fair.
I'm glad he is doing well.
I really hate to see anybody notdo well.
Okay, so we gotta ask you, therewas the A and witch pub became
the ale.
Remember the witch pub, You canbring your own sandwiching.
Exactly.
One of the few places in NewBrunswick.
You can order in whatever youwant.
You can bring in in whatever youwant.
If he needs to be heated up, thebartends will put it in the
microwave, heat it up for you.
It's the only place.
(33:50):
So just so you know in ourplace, we won't heat something
for you.
Just that that's not how itworks.
so we do have restaurantoperators who listen to the
show, right?
And it's not ex exclusively setat bartenders and restaurant
operators.
You have a small bar here,you're a single proprietor.
It's, um, it is an institution.
One of your solutions I know isto have long-term employees that
(34:10):
you trust, but.
You are not here every night,but you hear a lot during the
day and you just said, if you'renot there, you're gonna get
ripped off.
So what is it that you do duringthe day and how do you make sure
as a single operator that youdon't get ripped off by your
bartenders at night in a barthat has a lot of cash going
(34:30):
through?
Okay.
First off, I have an amazingstaff.
I have people that have beenwith me for years that I totally
100% trust.
I used to be a bartender.
I know what goes on behind thebar.
I know that, Hey, here's mybuddy.
Here's a drink.
I understand that.
Yeah.
You know, uh.
Everything that happens herewhen I come in the next morning,
I've been doing this long enoughand it's something I really
can't explain to you.
(34:51):
I mean, you guys probably knowit.
Yeah.
I can walk into the bar and Ican just look around.
You're like, there's some scotchmissing and, and we have an
inventory system upstairs and,and everybody's honest, and I
got, you know, and I know whatstaff drinks what and when
they're working on, no, but youknow, I, I have that leeway with
them because I need to trustthem.
Mm-hmm.
They need to trust me.
They make suggestions to me.
(35:12):
I'm not a beer drinker, I'm nota whiskey drinker.
They come in, they say, yougotta get this, you gotta try
this.
You know, like things likebullet and, the white claws that
came in.
And so I trust them.
Without them, there would be nobe no awi.
And, you know, I've got the, theregisters on my cell phone, the
registers on my iPad.
Uh, you have to trust them.
You know, there are a lot ofpeople, well, there are a lot of
people that don't trust theiremployees.
(35:33):
And every employee that I haveworking for me came from a
recommendation.
From an employee.
Well, I, I also wanna point outsomething that you just said.
You have to trust him.
I've got it on my phone.
I've got the cameras.
Oh yeah.
So it's, it's like old trust andverify.
Yeah.
Trust and verify.
The old dets, when we, when wehad de taunt with the Soviet
Union, it was, it was trust butverify.
Exactly.
So you say, listen, keep allyour nuclear weapons out where I
(35:53):
can see'em.
I'll keep all my nuclear weaponsout where I can see'em.
There's a camera there.
Don't screw me.
And if you screw me once, ourphilosophy is if you lie to me
or steal from me.
That's it.
It's because you can neverregain the trust of stealing.
You make a mistake, you dosomething wrong.
But when you get people like we,we have the same philosophy,
long-term employees whom youtrust, who they know, you would
(36:16):
never screw them.
And so you can trust that theywon't screw you, but you get to
trust and verify.
Just like they should verifytheir paycheck every week to
make sure that you don't make amistake in their hours.
And there's nothing wrong withthat.
Um, but you know, we, we trustthat we won't screw each other.
But it's hard in this business,don't it?
It is hard.
But, you know, the good thingis, is you know, you know.
I can go away now there's acertain lead up to me going
(36:39):
away.
I have to work really, reallyhard before I go away.
Yeah, I gotta make sureeverything's here.
You know, all the liquor youneed, all the fruit you need,
all the juices you need, youknow, make sure everybody's
banks are right.
Extra, extra singles, extraquarters, extra fives,
cigarettes.
You know where one of the fewplaces that sells cigarettes
still Jesus.
So.
This is old school.
Well, you don't want a customerleaving to go buy a cigarette.
(36:59):
No.
'cause they may never come back.
Right.
So you want to keep, and we havethe outdoor smoking patio, so
there's a big lead up to megoing away.
But I have people that work forme, that I trust that go
upstairs.
They take care of the money,they have access to whatever's
upstairs.
So what do you do every day?
'cause you work a lot of hoursstill and you're not behind the
bar at night.
No.
What is it that your dayconsists of when you get here?
(37:19):
I walk through the patio and I'mlooking around.
Was the bar clean last night?
Is there any broken glass?
Is there any graffiti?
I walk in here, I go downstairs.
I walk through the basement, Ilook at the air tanks.
Uh, is there enough air I gowalk into every cooler.
Is it working?
Is there an is?
there there any water anywhere?
Is there anything going on?
Are the ice machines making ice?
I come up here, I look around, Igo up into the liquor room, I
(37:42):
check the empty bottles, So youdo the inventorying yourself?
Yeah, I do.
I do.
You know, we have a.
Ordering liquor for me is veryeasy.
Bartender kills a bottle, goesupstairs, signs out, another
bottle, puts it down.
I look at it and I go, I need acase of this.
Nobody throws out a bottle, butyou, nobody throws out a bottle.
Ah, that's good bottle, emptybottle ordering Mark.
And I love that system.
It's a great system.
(38:02):
And like I said, I, you know, Itrust my people and when there's
a problem, they do not hesitateto call me.
But sometimes there's problemsthey deal with themselves and I
don't know about it.
I'll find out about a weeklater, Hey, somebody told me
that.
I figured didn't need to know.
He says, oh, really didn't needto know.
I, I will tell you somethingthat, that we've done, and we
did it 25 years ago, is amanagement log at the end of the
night.
(38:22):
And so the, so I get a list ofbasically everything that
happened during the course ofthe evening.
They they send an email to allthe bartender sends one and the
matri bartender to make is thateverything bad that happens.
Everything that happens good andbad.
So your regular customers whocame in, your, your, who did I
buy a drink for?
Whose birthday was it?
Was there a problem?
Did the power go out?
Was there a problem?
Did the power go out?
Did we, did we start to fallbehind In the middle of service
(38:43):
was, did we not handle a must?
Big, that must big log.
No, it's just an email that goesout to everybody and every
morning I get, we get threeemails and, and we're like, IM
takes them 10 minutes to write.
But not only goes to us, it goesto our other matrix.
We're a bigger, biggerorganization.
Right.
So everybody reads what theclosing.
Matri d or bartender said lastnight, and for us, so let's say,
(39:04):
uh, there's a problem.
Well, if I walk in and there's amessage on a machine from the
problem customer, I already havea log of what, what happened
last night?
And, oh, I had to throw this guyout, or, oh, we really messed
up.
And we need to apologize to thisguy.
And those are two very differentconversations, right?
Oh, yeah.
No, I, I mean, I, I've had thatmyself.
(39:24):
You know, I'll come in andthere'll be, you know, at 4:00
AM message on the answeringmachine, and I have to listen to
it a couple of times.
I was kicked outta your bar lastnight.
I don't know why I didn't doanything wrong.
And I said, yeah, you know.
Then I talked to the bartenderand they go, yeah, he kept
paying for his drinks with otherpeople's money.
He just kept pointing downthere, pointing down there.
Then you talk to the guy and yougo.
(39:45):
I was confused.
All the money looks the same.
I said, I understand that.
I have to say, I, I had amessage like that, uh, I got
thrown outta your bar lastnight, and it was from my
cousin.
Oh yeah.
And my answer to him was, I knowthey called me before they threw
you out, and I told them tothrow.
I just wanna point out that youguys have, uh, both used
(40:05):
something that was old, oldManish that I do as well, you
said, and there'd be a messageon the machine.
By the way, there's no machines,guys, just to throw that back at
you.
Yeah.
Got you Said the bartenderswould make mint.
Yeah.
Sorry.
I remember I remembered catchmy, I remembered it as cheddar.
We made cheddar last night, socheddar.
(40:28):
Wow, that's old.
Yeah.
Okay, so we're, we're coming tothe close of our interview and I
hope we've given everybody aflavor of this most authentic
dive bar, for me, the one.
Um, but are there any, there is,is there a night that you
remember at the Allen Witch Pubthat was like, either cra a
crazy night or the, what's yourmost memorable night at the, at
(40:50):
the Allen Witch Pub?
Most memorable night.
Boy, I wish you would've askedme this question, uh, ahead of
time.
The most memorable night easilywas, uh, I think it was April,
2007 when smoking was going tostop at midnight.
Ah, inside.
Yeah.
And, and I mean, we had a smokeeater there.
We had a smoke eater there.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And when, when I would comeoutta work, I would have to come
(41:13):
into my house on the side door.
Go into the basement.
Mm-hmm.
Take all my clothes off, put'emin the washing machine.
Run the washing machine, take ashower downstairs, brush my
teeth, clean my ears.
Scrub my nails because youwreaked of cigarette smoke.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Reap the cigarette smoke.
Um, it was a good way of maskingperfume, but Oh.
(41:34):
But, I was so worried becauseyou would win walk in here and
it was just a cloud of smoke.
I said, we're gonna have nothingbut problems at midnight.
Everybody's gonna be goingcrazy.
The lead up to midnight, peoplewere smoking that never, ever
smoked a cigarette before, said,oh, this is gonna be so bad.
Midnight came.
It was just this huge round ofapplause.
Everybody was happy really?
Because we had the outside.
Yeah.
(41:54):
Yeah.
And, and then there were a lotof bar owners saying, and
restaurant owners saying, I'mgonna lose business.
I'm.
Never happened.
Never.
That's the most memorable nightother than when we took the drop
ceiling down.
'cause it used to be, this isthe original uh, 1907 ceiling
and it tin it's tin ceiling now.
Uh, rolled steel ceiling.
Yeah.
Not tin rolled steel.
It was supposed to, it wassupposed to be fireproof, but it
(42:14):
obviously dozen and there werewires crossing everywhere.
And so I would come in everynight with this guy Gary, who
used to help me trying to figureout what the wires are.
They live.
There was just this wirehanging.
I figured, oh, this must be a,this must be a dead wire.
It's not.
The hotel grabbed it, gotzapped, got thrown across the
bar, Gary, that's why they haveelectricians.
Just, you know, Gary looked downat me, go's a very important
(42:36):
job.
Are we done for the evening?
And I'm like, no, we gotta keepgoing.
But that, yeah, when, whencigarette smoking stopped, it
never ever affected us.
That's awesome.
That's good for you.
Oh, and what's odd is you'reprobably the last bar in New
Brunswick that still sellscigarettes behind the bar.
Yeah.
And they're not cheap.
Lemme, I, you know, that's anexpensive habit.
You know, we, what do you chargefor a pack of cigarettes?
(42:57):
$13.
It's amazing.
But you know what, on the, on,on the, it's either the Camel or
the Marlboro brands.
I'm only making like.
Dollars.
Exactly.
Yeah.
And it's not about, and it's notabout making the money, it's
just like about keeping thepeople here.
Yep.
So can I smoke a cigar?
And you're smoking a lounge outthere?
Something?
Oh yeah.
Oh yeah, sure.
The smoking patio is, is, youknow, is still out there.
Well, so let me ask you aquestion about the, about the
current clientele.
So we've talked about it beingan old man bar, a lesbian bar,
(43:20):
biker bar, a hippie bar, coolCollo student bar.
What is it now like?
Who comes here now?
If Mark and I walked in afterwork on a, on a Wednesday night
at 10 o'clock or at six o'clockin the evening, would we feel at
home here or abs?
Absolutely.
Who's coming?
When people ask me that, I tell'em.
It's hippies, hipsters, artists,musicians, Inc.
L-G-B-T-Q, United Nations ofColors, professors, professors
(43:44):
with their students who are over21 that sit here and, and do
discussions as part of a part oftheir class age.
21 to 60, 65, 70.
Notice he made it 65.
Because I'm 60.
I I was at the limit.
I got, I got an extension therefour years at the last minute.
Hey Rob, it has been great.
(44:04):
I know we know each other reallywell, and, and I know You're
podcast listening.
Yes, I am.
Um, if you would like a chanceto win an ALE in witch t-shirt.
You should email us at theguys@restaurantguyspodcast.com
and, uh, and we'll pick a nameout and we'll pick a name out of
a hat and a future episode, um,if you're in New Brunswick.
And you gotta be chill.
You gotta be cool.
(44:24):
And if you are, you can comevisit R one Lewis and Hamilton
here in New Brunswick on theAllen Witch Pub.
Uh, it's been a great time, Rob.
Thanks.
I, I, I appreciate it.
Thank you We'll be back in justa moment and you can always find
out more aboutus@restaurantguyspodcast.com.
(45:03):
Hi everybody.
Welcome back.
It is Mark.
I have to tell you, I am ascomfortable in this bar today as
I was 30, 40 years ago.
Yeah, that's'cause one o'clockin the afternoon, brother.
Yeah.
And I had to get this.
That's, that's true too.
So, so this bar has a, has a lotof fond memories.
But I do want to harken back tosomething Rob said earlier.
(45:23):
Do you remember at the frog ofthe peach when we had the
cigarette drawer?
There was a drawer with packsof, that's what it was for.
It was so people wouldn't gosomeplace else.
Right.
You sold cigarettes by bar?
We sold cigarettes.
Everyone sold cigarettes by thebar and it was, it was in a
drawer and we, and we sold apack of cigarettes and
occasionally we'd have even theopen pack and somebody like.
Can I get one of the, from theopen pack?
(45:44):
Oh yeah.
The singles.
Yeah, the singles.
The singles illegal to sell thesingles.
Well, we didn't sell'em, we justgive'em away, but they're,
they're, occasionally it'd beopen pack for somebody who just
wanted a cigarette.
Two 50.
By the way, we bought the packscost when we first started.
2050 cents.
That's a long, that's a longtime ago.
Uh, so I, we can't leave this,the ail and witch party without
(46:04):
talking about one of the firsttimes I brought Jennifer here,
my, my wife, who's also theproducer of the show.
Yeah.
So what's amazing is she becameyour wife after you brought her
here.
So I'm bringing beers to thetable, and I hand a beer to
Jennifer.
It just slips out of my hand andspills all over her.
Now we're dating weeks.
(46:25):
I mean, it's not, it's not verylong time.
Suave.
Okay.
Suave Mark.
Oh my God.
I'm so sorry.
I'm so sorry.
And of course my reaction isn't,let me clean you up.
My reaction is, let me get youanother beer.
Well, that's, and I knowJennifer, and that I'm sure that
both of your priorities were inthe same place.
Except I went and I got heranother beer.
Yeah.
(46:45):
And I brought it over to heragain.
And I spilled it all over her,the second one all over her.
How have I never heard thisstory?
That's amazing.
it was true love from thatmoment on.
Dude, I, I have to say thankheaven for beautiful women with
poor judgment to men.
That woman married me.
Yeah.
I spilled two entire pints ofbeer on her at the Ale in Witch
(47:08):
in 19 88, 89, and she, and she'sstill married to me today, was
Moonlight Serenade playing inthe two class at the time.
Oh Lord, I, I miss those days.
Listen, I hope you guys haveenjoyed this, uh, walk down
memory lane with the restaurantguys.
I'm Francis Shot.
And I'm Mark Pascal.
We're the restaurant guys.
(47:29):
You can always find out moreabout
us@restaurantguyspodcast.com.
Hello everybody and welcome.
You are listening to theRestaurant Guys.
I'm Mark Pascal and I'm herewith Francis Shot.
Together we own stage left andKa Lombardi restaurants here in
New Brunswick, New Jersey.
We're here to bring you theinside track on food, wine, and
the finer things in life.
Hello, mark.
Hey, Francis.
How are you?
I'm, I'm doing well.
I'm thrilled that, that ourguest today is gonna be Rob
(00:32):
Aliya from the Ail and WitchPub.
We're gonna head over thereafter this nine minutes and
interview him in person on siteat a bar that you may not have
heard of, but is very importantto you and me.
It's gonna be an all NewBrunswick show today.
We're, we're happy about that.
Uh, today we have to talk aboutone of the most serious topics
that a restaurant.
(00:52):
2025 gonna be talking about.
Um, I, I'll bite.
What, what, what do we got?
We're gonna talk about ice.
Oh, okay.
No, not that ice, not the oneyou're thinking about.
Ice.
Ice behind the bar.
Okay.
ice behind the bar.
Francis and I have talked aboutit ad nauseum, right?
We've talked about how importantice is to have the right ice to
all those things, but I'm stillsurprised at how wrong.
(01:18):
Some places get it.
And you and I were at a weddingrecently and they had the wrong
kind of ice.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
They didn't have anyalternative, but they didn't
just have the wrong kind of ice.
and this, you really have to becareful about at a wedding or a
place where you, you have astandalone bar.
Okay.
Okay.
Where you have a bar that's likean auxiliary, oh, I know what
(01:39):
you're gonna say to your, toyour other bar.
so we had the, the really smallcubes that kind of bend
together.
So they, they all come togetherin the glass and they, they
really get a lot of fill on theglass and, and frankly add too
much water to the glass.
They were the half moons.
The half moons.
Mm-hmm.
So it wasn't just that they werethe half moons.
Okay.
(02:00):
It was, the bar was set up tooearly.
Oh, okay.
Yeah.
So the ice was melted.
So the half moons were half,half moons swimming in water.
So they were just, they werewet.
Okay.
Yeah.
And they, they weren't attemperature, right?
So they turned to water in onesecond.
Right?
An ice cube.
(02:20):
Can be 20 degrees below zero.
Right, right, right.
An ice cube can be very, verycold.
Right.
Right.
and then that coldness goes intoyour drink.
And depending on whattemperature the cube is and the
size of the cube decides howmuch water's gonna go into your
drink.
Right.
Well, the bar was tremendouslyadorned.
The bar had great productsbehind it, and I had a Macallan
(02:43):
12-year-old scotch and.
The bartender put this slushyice, so the scotch and water
into my drink.
I, I didn't, I, I could not havetold you 45 seconds into my
drink that I was drinkingscotch.
Really?
Yeah, I bet it was all water.
(03:03):
It was, it was, the drink was85% water, in, in a minute.
Well, you know, the funny thingis, and I think I want to
clarify how ICE works for thelisteners, and there's different
shapes of ice.
You, well, clarifying ice is, wedon't, that's, I don't wanna, I
don't wanna get that technical,I won't get that.
We won't get that technical, buthow ice works and you drink and
why, like the cold rocks don'twork in your drink.
If you ever saw the rocks thatthey, you sell for scotch
mm-hmm.
(03:23):
That you keep in your freezerand you put in your, in your
whiskey, the reason they don'twork is.
It's not just coming intocontact with a cold thing that
makes your drink cold.
Ice melting is an endothermicreaction.
So the act of the ice melting,oh, it's getting dorky, is
absorbing heat, right?
So if your ice is all but meltedand you've only got a little bit
(03:44):
left to melt and it's turns towater, you don't get a lot of
that reaction.
But if you've got nice.
Big, thick, cold ice cube, youget a little bit of cooling from
just having a, an even colderthan melting temperature.
Mm-hmm.
Ice cube.
And then you get all that meltthat comes in slowly and that
reaction keeps happening and itkeeps on cooling your drink.
But if it's all but melted, youget it in, it cools you, it
(04:06):
gives up the ghost.
Ah, and then, and then instead,and you just have water and it
stops doing the work.
Yeah.
So the, the reason those.
marble cubes in the bottom ofthe glass never really get the
scotch cold is because somethinghas to Mel, they don't melt into
the, they don't melt into thedrink.
And as soon as that ice is likeadding a little cold water to
(04:26):
your scotch is not the same asadding ice to your scotch.
That ice cube is a, is an engineof a certain size in relation to
what else is in your glass, andit's really important and.
It's hard to get, cateringplaces don't often get it right.
A lot of bars don't get itright.
There's a lot of really greatice out there now too.
Okay.
You can, I, I mean, I won't, I,I won't forget my ex, my first
(04:46):
experience we were, I was atDonovan Bar in London and I got
one of these perfectly diamond.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Ice cubes, well, not Japanesestyle ice diamonds, right?
Mm-hmm.
Right.
But it was perfect.
Mm-hmm.
Okay.
You would like, you would thinkthat somebody actually cut a
diamond, and they had this greatcocktail that, and they painted
the side of the glass, so thecolors were fracted through the
(05:08):
diamond and into the drink, andit was really interesting and,
fantastic in its own way, but.
The place.
Never forgot that.
The main purpose of that icecube Yeah.
Was to get it cold, was to coolthe drink and create a certain
amount of melt in that drink.
So yes.
Cool.
Interesting.
Fascinating.
(05:29):
Visually interesting.
All great.
But you still have to have theright amount of ice and melt and
coldness in your drink.
Well, and the thing is like,look.
You don't have to get intocalculating this at home, but if
you have like crushed ice, likegood cold, crushed ice mm-hmm
that's going to melt faster,chill your drink more, but ute
(05:49):
it quicker than one big cube andthen having regular sized ice
cubes versus one big cube thatit's going to melt at different
rates.
Providing more or less coolingfor a longer or shorter time,
totally geeking out.
All we're saying is ice matters.
Yeah.
It really does matter.
And as far as the clear ice,'cause this is all we're talking
about ice, it's it's actuallysolid matter.
(06:09):
It is, it is actually.
Okay.
It's one of the three states ofmatter.
It's, it's true.
so that's, that's very good.
Um, but I, I do wanna, it wasterrible, just like your
terrible joker earlier.
I was trying to be kind, so, butwhat I.
I want to talk about clear ice.
It's possible to make clear iceat home.
You can buy stuff@amazon.com.
Uh, if you want, I'm putting alink of this show.
I'll send you a link to what,what I use in my home
(06:30):
refrigerator to make big, clearice cubes.
It's really amazing.
Um, but if you, your ice cubesin the freezer, the reason they
get cloudy is'cause as thewater.
Crystallizes.
The gas that is suspended in thewater is released and it gets
trapped in the middle there, andthere's a way to deal with that.
As far as clear ice isconcerned, that's really just
aesthetic.
Mm-hmm.
(06:50):
But it's a beautiful aesthetic,and if you're having drinks, you
may as well do the aestheticthing, but your ice cubes at
home from an ice cube tray,those solid cubes of ice are
probably better than mostrestaurants use with their
hollow cubes or their halfmoons.
And it makes a pretty gooddrink.
And to the restaurant.
Out there.
Make sure you're constantlyputting new ice on top of your
(07:11):
old ice, in your ice binsbecause you, you're getting that
melt.
the change in temperatureshappening to the Cuban, you're
causing your ice to melt toofast.
Well, and what's, and what'salso happening is if you are in
the, in the business, if youhave ice in a cooler, you've
done this at that party at home,not, I'm not pointing Mark.
Mm-hmm.
I'm pointing at The podcastworld, you've done this at home.
If you have, he's shaking hisfinger too.
Be careful.
If you have a cooler of ice athome and you wanna get your
(07:34):
beers cold in it, you let theice kind of melt, you throw some
water in there so everythingsloshes around and the water
conducts the cold to your beers.
But if you wanna have ice tomake drinks at home, open that
little plug in the bottom'causeyou want the water to drain out.
As it as it goes, so your icestays dry.
So the way commercial icemachines work, ice bins, uh, is
ice bins.
(07:54):
So the machine drops it into abin and there's a drain on the
bottom and it slowly melts outand, and drains out from the
bottom.
And we keep getting fresh ice onthe top, but the ice is always
dry in the bin, in therestaurant.
There's a drain on the bottomthat the ice is always dry in
the bin.
And a lot of catering places,'cause they have a rolling bar,
they don't have a separation,which you can get to get that
(08:17):
water away from the ice.
So that refresh ice is as isnecessary, but it really makes a
huge difference.
So the quality of the drink.
So Francis, I would just likethe entire.
Guest list of the restaurantguys to know exactly how
persnickety I am.
Okay, so last night had a, amixers, uh, 10-year-old rye, and
(08:38):
I wanted a big ice cube to getit cold.
And so I had a big ice cube inmy mixers, 10-year-old rye
uhhuh, but then it got to justthe perfect dilution and perfect
coldness.
So I had to reach into my glassand take the what was left of
the giant ice cube out of myrye, so that I would, so that it
wouldn't melt anymore and makeit, and make it more dilute.
(09:01):
You could talk to 90% of theworld and they would think that
that made you persnickety.
You know that I do that everyfricking time.
I, it's like, ah, perfect rightnow.
Yeah.
And you know what I do sometimesis I take it out and I put it on
the side or from the SidewalkCafe.
Mm-hmm.
I'll just throw it in theplanter.
Yeah.
You just, ice is a tool and.
I gotta get it outta my drinkand I'm not afraid to use my
fingers.
Oh no, absolutely not.
It's just ice.
It's just water.
It's clean.
(09:21):
Alcohol kills the germs.
Well, if this conversationhasn't left you cold, uh, stick
with us.
We're gonna talk, we're gonnatalk to Rob.
Elliot made me groan.
You made me groan.
we're gonna talk to Rob Deliafrom the Ail and Witch Pub in
New Brunswick, New Jersey, whichhas been here for a very long
time.
And it's where Francis had hisfirst legal Guinness at about 10
minutes after midnight on his21st birthday.
(09:43):
We'll be back in just a moment.
You can always find out moreabout the restaurant
guys@restaurantguyspodcast.com.
the-restaurant-guys_1_07-17 (09:49):
Hey there everybody.
Welcome back.
Today you are with therestaurant guys on site at the A
and Witch Pub in New Brunswick,New Jersey.
We are with the owner Rob Delia,who is a friend of ours for a
long time, and the A and WitchPub is an institution in this
town and it's actually the.
The bar where I had my firstlegal drink on my 21st birthday,
(10:13):
and Mark and I are sitting herewith Rob and we have three
Guinnesses poured in front ofus.
And so a Hail and Hardy Slan,aka.
Rob Delia, welcome to the show.
Well, thank you very much.
Uh, what I want to know is howmany illegal drinks did you have
here before he turned year orso?
Statute limitations is, let'sremember that 1985 licenses were
(10:34):
still made of paper, so.
You know, as long as yourphysical characteristics were
close, you could hand somebody apaper license.
The statute of limitations isover.
The guy, there was a guy, uh,the head of me in school, his
name was Brad Anthony, and heloaned me his paper license and
then I got the backupdocumentation.
I started coming here when I was20, and then it was my 21st
(10:55):
birthday and I lived severalblocks from here.
I lived on French and SeamenStreet and at, at a big party.
And Mark, you were at the partySo midnight on March 14th, we
walked down with my sisters andI had my first legal drink here.
And, uh, and so my name changedfor Brad Anthony to Francis Shop
on that night.
It was great.
It was a great time and I, Ithink we first met either the
(11:18):
late eighties or the earlynineties.
I think it was the lateeighties.
Back then, it was, I remember itbeing July, we had an air
conditioner over the door.
We had an air conditioner in thewindow, and there's Francis
leaning up against a jukeboxthat was in the game room in
jeans and a leather.
Motorcycle jacket.
Oh, for sure.
I was so in, in July.
I, I was, I had taken mymotorcycle safety first.
(11:39):
Man.
It was a and and you didn't wantsee what was under No, like he
was a pencil neck geek.
So he had the, kept themotorcycle jacket on.
Took that, I had long hair.
It was a shot perfecto jacket.
And if you wanted to pick upgirls in the Allen witch pub,
that's how you dressed.
That's what in July.
It was safety.
First it was for safety.
And that's the same jacket thatyou.
Or having a party at your houseand somebody reached in through
(12:00):
the window on the fire escapeand stole that jacket.
That's why we need local barowners, everybody, because you
have all the stories.
So that Indeed was the samejacket I, rode all around
America on my motorcycle withthat jacket, and I lived at a
different house, wasn't it, overhere?
86 Lewis Street, which doesn'texist anymore.
I stopped on my way here andit's just been torn down But I
(12:21):
had, you would think that itwould become a historical
landmark.
I know at this point.
I know, right?
Know.
so I had my jacket on thekitchen table, but it was close
to the kitchen window, and somekid reached in, grabbed the
jacket off the kitchen table,and ran with it.
Fortunately, Brian Mack, uh,who's a friend of ours, a
departed friend of ours, rest issoul.
but he was a pool hustler and heused to hustle pool up at
(12:43):
Patrick's, so he knew all thelocal scumbags.
And so he's like, so, so I tellthe story, I'm at work.
He worked for us at, at stage,left and tell us the story says
stuff, and Brian Mack shows upwith my jacket two days later.
I'm like.
Where did you find that?
He's like, ah, Patrick's, youknow, I found out who stole it.
I bought it back from him.
You owe me$7.
(13:03):
I was insulted by how little Ihad to pay to get it back.
$7 back then you could drink allday at Patrick's.
You could probably drink all dayat Patrick's now at$7.
but this bar, it's, well it'sbeen an institution in this town
forever, right?
I mean, literally before we werehere, this bar was here.
Before any of us were here, thisbar was here.
(13:23):
Yeah.
And the building has, you know,history.
As well.
And it goes back, it was otheriterations before it was built
in 1907.
It was originally a tailor shopon the main floor.
And they were European, theylived, their apartment was where
the pool room was, was theirbedroom, uhhuh.
And their kitchen is where thegame room is.
And the only bathroom was wherethe ladies' room was.
(13:45):
No shower, no tub.
And from there it became a dry,good store.
And then in 1934 it became theHamilton Grill and the pool room
was where the band would sitbecause if you didn't have a
quartet.
Playing.
You couldn't serve liquor.
You.
No.
You weren't getting anybusiness.
Every really, if you ever lookin those old New Brunswick,
guide magazines.
Yeah.
Magazines and guides.
They have, everybody had a trioor a quartet plane.
(14:05):
Mm-hmm.
I mean, Hamilton Street was allbars.
All bars all the way down.
Well, it's so we've had a greatresurgence here in New
Brunswick.
It's been really terrific.
So that was the case back then,right?
You always had live musiceverywhere.
'cause if you wanted music, itwas live music, right?
And.
There's a group called NewBrunswick Jazz Project, and they
brought live music back to the,the downtown.
(14:27):
The downtown.
To the downtown.
Well, we're not, we're not in adowntown right now.
Right.
But we're only, you know, threequarters of a mile away, brought
live music back to the downtown.
It's, it's added so much energy,I think, to the city.
Yeah.
To, to know that you're gonnahave live music three or four
days a week.
Well, but what I wanna say aboutthis place, so for those of you
who are listening, and may we'llpost some pictures up, or maybe
we'll throw some stuff onInstagram so you can see.
(14:48):
This place.
And I know I may be prejudicedbecause this is the first bar.
Oh, I know.
You're pre prejudiced about thisbar for sure.
Yeah.
I, because it was my first bar,Uhhuh and it was my local,
right.
So I lived within a few blocksof, here Francis moved like four
times.
Yeah.
while he was in New Brunswick.
But he made sure never to bemore than two blocks away, which
he basically, this was thecenter, but, and he just, and he
(15:10):
just rotated around this, this,this, but it was where everybody
knew your name.
Every, and you, I knew everybartender from, so when I first
started coming here, the barmanager was Alex v God bless
Alex.
And, uh, he has also passedaway.
I'm hard to say sadly, but Alexbecame a good friend of mine,
uh, and I, I turned 21, uh, andgot a job as a bartender at the
(15:32):
frog and the peach the samemonth.
And so once you're a bartender.
In the bartender's bar, youknow, and I used to stop in and
I would stop in because you guyshad a dart board.
Mm-hmm.
And I love darts and I still do,and I know, but I wanna talk
about that.
So I, but I would come in andplay darts before going to work
and drink club soda and hang outwith Alex.
(15:52):
And then I would come after workand, and drink.
But this was a, and drag whoeverwho, whoever, whoever would come
with him, he would drag to playdarts.
But, but the thing about it is,this is a.
Absolutely.
We talk about what's a real bar,what's a real Irish bar?
What's a real authentic place?
You sit down in this place andyou simply know that it feels
(16:12):
like it's always been here, andit feels like when I walked into
this place for the first time in1985, mark and Jen, you guys
feel the same way.
Yeah.
No offense.
It looks a little bit like thesame place.
Yeah.
You know, we, we try to maintainthe look.
But when I first walked in,which was also in the eighties,
um, being from Jersey City andfrom being from a neighborhood
where there was literally a barin every corner mm-hmm.
(16:34):
I walked in, I looked around, Iwas like, where am I?
I know.
I feel like I've been herebefore.
Yeah.
I never was before.
Yeah.
And I've never left.
And it said local and, andpeople use this now and, and I
think the terms actually becomean ingratiating term now.
Right.
It's a, it's a term ofendearment.
dive bar.
Oh yeah.
It's the dive bar.
Okay.
It is, this is the mostauthentic dive bar.
(16:55):
In New Jersey maybe, butcertainly in New Brunswick.
I like to consider it aglorified dive bar.
We were a couple of years ago,the number, the uh, number five
dive bar in New Jersey accordingto New Jersey magazine.
Mm-hmm.
Right.
Which, which was, which wasgreat.
Um, you know, they say whatmakes a dive bar weird things
hanging on the walls that younormally, would you have that
wouldn't say, we've got plentyof that.
That's a mighty duck banner, Ibelieve.
(17:16):
Uh, yes it is.
Uh, some of my bartenders arediehard ducks fans, but, um, you
know, we've have, we haveeverything except.
The dog laying in the corner,which we used to have.
I remember the dog.
Oh yeah.
Laying in the, but you know, thething about it is though I've
seen people open, quote unquotedive bars and try to make them
look like an old bar and put abunch of crazy things on the
(17:38):
wall.
This is stuff that has justcollected over.
Decades.
And maybe each thing wasn't thatweird as it went up, but now
it's like, oh, you can't touchthat.
You know?
Yeah.
And you know, it's, it's a, it'sa, people give us stuff.
They say, I'm graduating, I'mnot, you know, I'm moving, I'm
going to med school orsomething.
And they go, can, can I give youthis?
(17:59):
This was in my apartment.
Can you put it up in the bar?
I'm like, yeah.
So it winds up, winds up on the,winds up on the top shelf up
there.
That's fantastic.
Uh, you know, the, the bigpicture of that gentleman, he
had his, uh.
He was a Rutgers student.
He had his 30th birthday partyhere and everybody had those
faces and he says, can I putthis up on this box?
I'm like, yeah, sure, you canput it up there.
So I remember when I was acollege student, this was a bar
that didn't seek out collegestudents, and to the extent it
(18:22):
sought out college students, itdidn't seek out mainstream
college students.
So, through the years as I wascoming here, it was an old man's
bar in the afternoon.
And what's ironic about that isI snuck in here as an underage
kid, and now I'm an old mansitting in the old man's bar
thinking about those old guys.
I am now an old guy.
Um, but you know, there were oldguys at be here in the
(18:43):
afternoon.
It was a lesbian bar for awhile.
A lot of, there was a biglesbian contingent around that
pool table, which is a, a minipool table.
Then it was a college studentbarber that it was like artists
and hippies and deadheads andnot the frat fraternity college
avenue.
Which, which which we have herein town.
Different, different downtown.
I worked in one of them, so, youknow, back in, back in college.
(19:05):
But why has this been alwayskind of a off the beaten path,
not the mainstream.
And is it still, it it, youdon't.
Students don't know about usunless another student tells'em
or if they live in theneighborhood.
Mm-hmm.
Right.
Um, I, you get people that maybe in their fourth year of
college and they'll, they'llmove in, they'll move in
somewhere on Hamilton Street andthey go, I never knew this place
(19:26):
existed.
Yeah.
You know, and, you know, thatkind of hurts.
But older brothers and sisters,you know, pass it down, parents
pass it down.
We did a, that's, did a, uh,graduation party in June, end of
May, June, and.
The father did it over thephone, didn't recognize the
name, didn't recognize thevoice.
He walked in.
We just looked at each other andpointed a fingers at each other.
(19:48):
He goes, I know you.
He goes, you were my bartenderwhen I was in college.
I says, yeah, I'm the owner now.
That's great.
And so, so it gets passed downand, and his daughter hung out
here the entire time.
All.
Well, I will tell you what hurtsmore than that.
Is we're now gettinggrandchildren of the people who
came in 30 years ago coming intoour, coming into our restaurant.
Yeah.
Right.
Oh boy, that's rough.
So, you know, one of the thingsthat I remember from, in the
(20:08):
days of yours, you used to havea pinball machine as pinball
machines were going away.
Mm-hmm.
I see.
If we don't have that anymore,it's hard to keep pinball
machines.
I, you know, I want ones.
The, uh, the video guy, Lou, thevideo guy, he, uh, says it, it's
not worth it.
He goes, they break down.
Mm-hmm.
Too much.
You can't get the parts anymore.
Right.
Um, so, you know, we're, we'restuck with what we have.
I mean, we have foosball and wehave an original Miss Pacman I
(20:30):
saw that's analog, not digital,and it's a big difference.
Mm-hmm.
And, you know.
One of the few, other thanPatrick's, I don't think any
other, the bar in New Brunswickhas a pool table.
Well, um, the thing that Iremember you had for a long
time, and these aren't reallyrelevant anymore, but you guys
had a jukebox.
Sure.
And what I loved about thejukebox here was it was this
crazy mix and it was real vinylinside the jukebox.
(20:51):
And it was a crazy mix of likethe most contemporary European
bands that were, you know.
Not widely available here.
A lot of cool music, a lot oflike Steppen Wolf and, uh,
little bit of Joan Jett, alittle bit of Joan Jett.
But there was a little sectionof, and this is before you owned
the place of forties music, andmy father's favorite, second
(21:13):
favorite song.
And my favorite song was alwaysMoonlight Sarah Knight, made by
Glen Miller.
And every time I came in here, Iwould play Moonlight Serenade by
Glen Miller.
nobody else ever playedMoonlight Serenade by Glen
Miller.
So it got to the point where thewhole bar would groan whenever
and, and then somebody would belike, oh my God, Francis is
here.
(21:33):
All right.
So I want, so all of you now whoare listening can.
Go Google Moonlight serenade andrealize really how old Francis
is.
Oh, it was great World War ii,man.
It was, uh, it was a differenttime.
Um, so I love the island witchpop, but back in the day there
were some people that hung outhere.
What time you gonna say back inthe day?
The show today?
A lot.
I think.
A lot.
(21:54):
Um, but back in the day, we, youhad, we had some.
Pretty famous people or peoplewho weren't yet, they had some
famous people.
Mm-hmm.
And you had some people whoweren't yet famous, who were
gonna be famous, who just hungout so, so Mario Vitali was in
this bar before and I knew him,but when he was cooking it stuff
Your face stuff.
Your face.
Yeah.
James Gal Feeney used to hangout here all the time.
(22:15):
Right.
he was roommates with abartender, a friend of our
mutual friend of, right.
Well, it wasn't roommates.
He lived on the couch.
He lived on the couch.
Rent free.
It's, that's the room.
That's a room.
A room right here, right.
Brookside.
What the, what are theapartments?
Yeah.
Brookside Terrace.
Brookside Apartments.
Brookside apartment.
That's where Alex lived as well.
And then, uh, you had JerryGarcia made an appearance here.
Jerry Gar.
We have Jerry Gar.
(22:35):
Jerry Garcia, the Grateful DeadPlead the um.
The rack, I think, was that whatit was called at Rutgers?
The rack, the Rutgers of thecenter.
And, and as much as God blessBob McGee as much as Bob McGee
hated the Grateful Dead andhated all the hippies that hung
out here,'cause we went througha hippie phase and uh, they.
He wound up here after the show,sat in the corner at the old
(22:57):
table.
The old table is still upstairs,still get young kids coming in.
Hey, my dad told me you got atable that Jerry Garcia sat up.
I said, really?
Yeah, yeah.
Take him upstairs.
They take a picture next to thetable.
That's awesome.
But yeah, that's it.
And Jim Babak and um, the bassplayer whose name escapes me
from, the Smither rings.
Mm-hmm.
They lived above what was thelawyer's office across the
(23:19):
street.
Smiths spent a lot of time inNew Brunswick.
Yeah.
They were here a lot.
The, uh, nobody knows who theSmither arenas are except people
precisely our age.
So great band, but they were agreat band, new Brunswick
centered to be fair to BobMcGee.
And, you know, having the, thehippies are not known for their
massive tipping.
Yeah, that's true.
Bob McGee was the manager.
So after Alex and Bob became themanager, Bob McGee became the
(23:41):
manager, you know, did a lot ofthings for the witch that are,
that are still here.
He was amazing.
They were both amazing, amazingguys.
Amazing guys Gone way too young.
Yeah.
A lot of influences in the barthat, uh, they both put here
that are still here.
Because when I took over it was,it wasn't about changing
anything.
It was about making it cleaner.
Maybe Yes.
(24:03):
Ask James.
Okay.
The smell's gone.
You did it.
Congratulations.
That's because the cats and thedogs are gone.
Nothing against cats and dogs.
It smell like a dirty old man.
Yeah, exactly.
And an old man bar.
Um, I wanted it to be the samebar you have.
It didn't want, didn't want itto change.
And so I, I tried real hard toget, added some new things, did
some things differently.
(24:23):
Uh, but basically if you walkedin here and you hadn't been here
30 years.
You would sit down and go, it'sthe same bar.
and you know, it's interesting'cause I think some places
become a museum of their formerself or a shadow of their former
self.
This is.
What it's always been, it's asvibrant and alive and as part of
the community as ever.
So I'm gonna remind Francis ofsomething.
(24:45):
Uh oh.
We did here about 25 years ago.
Dude, there are so many thingsyou could remind me of that I
don't necess, this is not 25years ago.
Okay.
Alright.
Uh, we had the staff Christmasparty here.
Mm-hmm.
I remember you guys opened earlyfor us.
Mm-hmm.
And we did the staff Christmasparty from like, I don't know.
Four to seven, something likethat.
And then you guys opened atseven and, and staff could do
(25:06):
what they wanted and we, webrought the staff in here and
they raised some holy hell and,not all good things happen.
Well, we left and let them andlet them all become your
problem.
Um, did you, did you take yourcredit card with ufo?
Yeah, we closed the tab andleft, closed the tab and left.
And we had a no shots rule whilewe were here.
I don't know what they didafter, of, so you are a part of
the community.
You're, you're dialed into NewBrunswick yourself and before
(25:28):
you, Bob McGee was dialed intothe community and so was Alex
vs.
But I remember the interestingpeople behind the bar.
You would come here.
And Alex, who just kneweverything.
And Alex was a genius.
When he left bartending, he wentand became a professor in like
three years.
Yeah.
Unbelievable.
And then, um.
Bob McGee was a, was a savant.
(25:49):
He, bob was everything aboutsports.
Every ev photographic memory,who wants to be a millionaire?
Bob McGee would be my guy tocall.
Oh, yeah.
Best question.
And what I loved about him, hehad tons of energy too.
He was just a super energy.
And he was also like a reallytall, really good looking guy.
Yeah.
And being a young, tall, goodlooking bartender.
You're never bored on your nightoff, you know what I'm saying?
(26:09):
But what he used to do is we'dcome in and one of my, he would
put people in their placebecause you have the, the
dartboard you have, which isvery important to mm-hmm.
Making the bar a bar.
Um, he would, he was such a gooddart player.
He would literally be behind thebar, lean out over the bar.
Throw three bullseye and beatyou without stepping out behind
(26:31):
the bar.
And it was always great to watchhim sucker somebody new into 20
bucks.
You want to talk aboutSuckering?
Jeopardy.
Jeopardy was big here.
Yeah.
When we were open very early andhe would come down and he would
start rattling off answers Rat.
And the the final jeopardyquestion.
Wasn't.
Two years later we found out hewas watching it a half an hour
(26:52):
early upstairs, because we hadthe dish.
He was watching it out ofPhilly, I love, and then he
would come down and he wouldjust go, oh yeah, I never knew
that.
Oh yeah.
Oh yeah.
That's amazing.
I never knew that.
That's amazing.
But he did a good memory of, hewould do the same thing with
Pete, uh, my ex partner's, uh,dad.
He, Pete would come down andwatch the races.
(27:13):
Bob had already seen the races.
Oh my goodness.
And he would go to Pete.
What'd you bet Pete?
Nah, nah, that horse is gonnawin.
Nah, he's not gonna win.
That's, and, and then people arelike, you gotta come with me to
OTP.
You gotta come with me to tb.
Oh, that's really funny.
So, so let's, talk about yourex-partner and his dad.
He used to live upstairs?
Yes.
He, he lived upstairs.
He, he, he mopped the, the barevery day.
Took a hundred dollars out ofthe register every morning, went
(27:35):
to OTB in Staten Island.
Wow.
And we get, we get phone calls.
You're a hundred dollars short.
Check your father's ticketstubs.
That that Pete lived up.
Pete lived upstairs.
That is so old school.
That's old school.
That's awesome.
Right?
We would have to, I mean this isback in the day when we would,
we would stay here after the barclosed, till the sun came up and
(27:56):
you knew it was time to leavewhen you could hear Pete
upstairs shuffling.
Oh, that's awesome.
You hear, hear speech.
We gotta get outta here and,and, and, and we would run,
because we were the hospitalitybar.
Yep.
Uh, for a very, very long time.
Oh yeah.
The bar, the bartenders were inthe, you know, when the bar was
open till 3:00 AM and the, thebig saying was, if you don, you
know, uh, bar's closed, yougotta leave.
Unless you work for a restaurantor a bar, you can say, yeah.
(28:17):
And, turn the lights down lowshut the music off.
The statute of limitations hasexpired.
City officials are listening.
We don't do that anymore.
Nobody, nobody would bother us.
From, and you knew to, you knewyou had to be quiet.
You know, you couldn't getrowdy.
You couldn't go out on thestreet and start screaming at,
at five o'clock in the morning.
It was civilized.
I remember.
So we talk often about SashaPetrowski who had milk and nunny
mm-hmm.
(28:37):
In New York City and how he was,one of the reasons he became
quote unquote speakeasy is'causehe was afraid his neighbors were
gonna shut his, shut him down.
And his landlord was a friend ofhis.
He said, if you disturb theneighborhood, I'm going to not
renew your lease and you're gota one year lease.
It was the same way here at theAllen Witch.
Absolutely.
It was a more mature crowd.
People took care of the bar, andI know there were some nights
(28:57):
where there was somebody whoworked the door check IDs and be
kind of security.
It wasn't anybody beefy.
Mm-hmm.
But it was somebody who could.
Yep.
You know, you never want oneperson to be alone in a bar.
Right.
Because if somebody hits thebartender over the head.
What do you do?
Um, but there were nights whenthis place would have just the
bartender in it, but it wasokay.
'cause if you mess with thebartender, 36 regulars, yeah,
(29:18):
were gonna take care of thefucking problem.
There's, there's quite a fewnights where I, I had to face
somebody down and I, you know,I'm shaken, but I'm, you know,
this is my house.
This is, these are my rules.
You can't do this here.
Right.
And then the guy backs down andI turn around, there's like four
people standing up.
Alright.
Thank you.
I, I know enough to keep armslength away from anybody that
might punch me.
(29:38):
Yeah.
I, I, uh, I will tell you, Iknow for sure that Francis and I
left this bar some nights andwe, and we would walk outside
and go, Hey, we gotta be quietbecause the neighbors of the
plane.
All right.
Speak for yourself.
Yeah, speak for yourself.
I do know I was here one nightwith a friend of mine got thrown
out and literally I am the mostregular, regular of regulars in
(30:00):
this bar.
And I thought that I was gonnaget thrown out because I, it
was, it was a, a friend of oursnamed Bill, who's a wonderful,
intelligent, he's a successfulguy.
He is.
And just this one night he went.
Way over anduncharacteristically, he started
singing the Rutgers song on thebanks of the, the old, old Raan,
(30:24):
except his version of it was onthe banks of the old Raan, on
the banks of the old Raan.
I don't know the goddamn words.
I don't know the goddamn wordsand the banks of the old very
10.
But why we got thrown out is hegot the whole bar.
Way too rowdy singing that.
And they were like, you gottaget your friend outta here.
(30:45):
Think we got another Bob McGeesomebody.
I mean, the songs were on thejukebox, and this is probably
when we had CD Jukebox and therewere many, many songs that
annoyed Bob McGee and a songwould come on, Bob would pause
it and go, who played that song?
And somebody be very practicallyRick Hand.
Hand.
I did.
Get the fuck out, get out of thebar, come back tomorrow.
Don't ever play that song again.
That's classic.
(31:06):
And and they would look at Boblike he's kidding.
Right?
And people regret No, Heylisten, we're gonna take a quick
baker and we're gonna come backon the other side.
We're gonna talk more with RobI'm gonna get myself another
Guinness and we're gonna hangout at the Allen Witch Pub in
New Brunwick, New Jersey.
We're gonna let you know how toget to the Ellen Witch Pub in
the show notes, and after thebreak we're gonna give you a
chance to win Alan Witcht-shirt, even if you don't live
here, we'll be back in just amoment.
(31:28):
Hey everybody.
Welcome back.
We with Rob Delia at the AllenWitch Pub in New Brunswick, New
Jersey where you need to come.
Do you have a website?
Yes, we do.
It's ww ww dot a n witch.com.
Also on Instagram, that's lal,the letter, N-A-L-E-N as in
Nancy, WIC h.com.
witch.com.
Mark (31:46):
So Rob, I'm not sure if you know this, but one of the
old regulars from when I went tocollege and a little bit after
from this bar guy by the name ofBrett Andres, and opened a bar
called the Ale and Witch,W-I-T-C-H, fraternity brother of
mine.
Really good guy.
Really good friend, and it'sbeers and live music.
(32:07):
He loved your name and he lovedthis place so much and he stole
it.
Well, he changed it from, yeah,from like the, the little
sandwich version to theW-I-T-C-H.
And it was total homage total.
Like he loved this place so muchthat when he opened his own
place,
Rob (32:23):
did he survive COVID.
He did.
That's a shame.
He's still there.
No, I I, I know, I, I've seenpictures of it and it looks like
a really, really cool place.
Yeah.
It's got an outdoor patio that'sa place right outside of it and
stuff.
That's that place.
And, and I had been back, uh, Ihad been in touch with him.
He never told me of, of theconnection.
That's like when, uh, I guess Icould talk about this'cause it
no longer exists.
The Ale House on George Street.
(32:43):
George Street, El House.
Yeah.
I, I saw, I saw their logo.
I called'em up, I go, Hey, haveyou ever seen our logo?
Yeah.
They're like, they're like, oh,you know,'cause they were trying
to capitalize on a and witch alehouse thinking like, you know,
ale House comes before, youknow, ale and witch if somebody
Googles it, but God bless Googleyou, you put in bar in New
(33:03):
Brunswick or a pool table.
Which pub right at the top ofthe, but you should feel really
good about it because
Mark (33:08):
Brett
Rob (33:08):
loves you guys.
He loved you guys, and it was atotal homage to, Hey, this is
the one of my favorite placesI've ever been.
So let me try and try andrecreate this in.
Well, if you, if you talk tohim, tell him I'd love to stop
in there.
I just need two first classtickets.
Yeah.
A hotel for a week.
A private driver and that soundsfair.
(33:29):
And everything on him.
That sounds fair.
I'm glad he is doing well.
I really hate to see anybody notdo well.
Okay, so we gotta ask you, therewas the A and witch pub became
the ale.
Remember the witch pub, You canbring your own sandwiching.
Exactly.
One of the few places in NewBrunswick.
You can order in whatever youwant.
You can bring in in whatever youwant.
If he needs to be heated up, thebartends will put it in the
microwave, heat it up for you.
It's the only place.
(33:50):
So just so you know in ourplace, we won't heat something
for you.
Just that that's not how itworks.
so we do have restaurantoperators who listen to the
show, right?
And it's not ex exclusively setat bartenders and restaurant
operators.
You have a small bar here,you're a single proprietor.
It's, um, it is an institution.
One of your solutions I know isto have long-term employees that
(34:10):
you trust, but.
You are not here every night,but you hear a lot during the
day and you just said, if you'renot there, you're gonna get
ripped off.
So what is it that you do duringthe day and how do you make sure
as a single operator that youdon't get ripped off by your
bartenders at night in a barthat has a lot of cash going
(34:30):
through?
Okay.
First off, I have an amazingstaff.
I have people that have beenwith me for years that I totally
100% trust.
I used to be a bartender.
I know what goes on behind thebar.
I know that, Hey, here's mybuddy.
Here's a drink.
I understand that.
Yeah.
You know, uh.
Everything that happens herewhen I come in the next morning,
I've been doing this long enoughand it's something I really
can't explain to you.
(34:51):
I mean, you guys probably knowit.
Yeah.
I can walk into the bar and Ican just look around.
You're like, there's some scotchmissing and, and we have an
inventory system upstairs and,and everybody's honest, and I
got, you know, and I know whatstaff drinks what and when
they're working on, no, but youknow, I, I have that leeway with
them because I need to trustthem.
Mm-hmm.
They need to trust me.
They make suggestions to me.
(35:12):
I'm not a beer drinker, I'm nota whiskey drinker.
They come in, they say, yougotta get this, you gotta try
this.
You know, like things likebullet and, the white claws that
came in.
And so I trust them.
Without them, there would be nobe no awi.
And, you know, I've got the, theregisters on my cell phone, the
registers on my iPad.
Uh, you have to trust them.
You know, there are a lot ofpeople, well, there are a lot of
people that don't trust theiremployees.
(35:33):
And every employee that I haveworking for me came from a
recommendation.
From an employee.
Well, I, I also wanna point outsomething that you just said.
You have to trust him.
I've got it on my phone.
I've got the cameras.
Oh yeah.
So it's, it's like old trust andverify.
Yeah.
Trust and verify.
The old dets, when we, when wehad de taunt with the Soviet
Union, it was, it was trust butverify.
Exactly.
So you say, listen, keep allyour nuclear weapons out where I
(35:53):
can see'em.
I'll keep all my nuclear weaponsout where I can see'em.
There's a camera there.
Don't screw me.
And if you screw me once, ourphilosophy is if you lie to me
or steal from me.
That's it.
It's because you can neverregain the trust of stealing.
You make a mistake, you dosomething wrong.
But when you get people like we,we have the same philosophy,
long-term employees whom youtrust, who they know, you would
(36:16):
never screw them.
And so you can trust that theywon't screw you, but you get to
trust and verify.
Just like they should verifytheir paycheck every week to
make sure that you don't make amistake in their hours.
And there's nothing wrong withthat.
Um, but you know, we, we trustthat we won't screw each other.
But it's hard in this business,don't it?
It is hard.
But, you know, the good thingis, is you know, you know.
I can go away now there's acertain lead up to me going
(36:39):
away.
I have to work really, reallyhard before I go away.
Yeah, I gotta make sureeverything's here.
You know, all the liquor youneed, all the fruit you need,
all the juices you need, youknow, make sure everybody's
banks are right.
Extra, extra singles, extraquarters, extra fives,
cigarettes.
You know where one of the fewplaces that sells cigarettes
still Jesus.
So.
This is old school.
Well, you don't want a customerleaving to go buy a cigarette.
(36:59):
No.
'cause they may never come back.
Right.
So you want to keep, and we havethe outdoor smoking patio, so
there's a big lead up to megoing away.
But I have people that work forme, that I trust that go
upstairs.
They take care of the money,they have access to whatever's
upstairs.
So what do you do every day?
'cause you work a lot of hoursstill and you're not behind the
bar at night.
No.
What is it that your dayconsists of when you get here?
(37:19):
I walk through the patio and I'mlooking around.
Was the bar clean last night?
Is there any broken glass?
Is there any graffiti?
I walk in here, I go downstairs.
I walk through the basement, Ilook at the air tanks.
Uh, is there enough air I gowalk into every cooler.
Is it working?
Is there an is?
there there any water anywhere?
Is there anything going on?
Are the ice machines making ice?
I come up here, I look around, Igo up into the liquor room, I
(37:42):
check the empty bottles, So youdo the inventorying yourself?
Yeah, I do.
I do.
You know, we have a.
Ordering liquor for me is veryeasy.
Bartender kills a bottle, goesupstairs, signs out, another
bottle, puts it down.
I look at it and I go, I need acase of this.
Nobody throws out a bottle, butyou, nobody throws out a bottle.
Ah, that's good bottle, emptybottle ordering Mark.
And I love that system.
It's a great system.
(38:02):
And like I said, I, you know, Itrust my people and when there's
a problem, they do not hesitateto call me.
But sometimes there's problemsthey deal with themselves and I
don't know about it.
I'll find out about a weeklater, Hey, somebody told me
that.
I figured didn't need to know.
He says, oh, really didn't needto know.
I, I will tell you somethingthat, that we've done, and we
did it 25 years ago, is amanagement log at the end of the
night.
(38:22):
And so the, so I get a list ofbasically everything that
happened during the course ofthe evening.
They they send an email to allthe bartender sends one and the
matri bartender to make is thateverything bad that happens.
Everything that happens good andbad.
So your regular customers whocame in, your, your, who did I
buy a drink for?
Whose birthday was it?
Was there a problem?
Did the power go out?
Was there a problem?
Did the power go out?
Did we, did we start to fallbehind In the middle of service
(38:43):
was, did we not handle a must?
Big, that must big log.
No, it's just an email that goesout to everybody and every
morning I get, we get threeemails and, and we're like, IM
takes them 10 minutes to write.
But not only goes to us, it goesto our other matrix.
We're a bigger, biggerorganization.
Right.
So everybody reads what theclosing.
Matri d or bartender said lastnight, and for us, so let's say,
(39:04):
uh, there's a problem.
Well, if I walk in and there's amessage on a machine from the
problem customer, I already havea log of what, what happened
last night?
And, oh, I had to throw this guyout, or, oh, we really messed
up.
And we need to apologize to thisguy.
And those are two very differentconversations, right?
Oh, yeah.
No, I, I mean, I, I've had thatmyself.
(39:24):
You know, I'll come in andthere'll be, you know, at 4:00
AM message on the answeringmachine, and I have to listen to
it a couple of times.
I was kicked outta your bar lastnight.
I don't know why I didn't doanything wrong.
And I said, yeah, you know.
Then I talked to the bartenderand they go, yeah, he kept
paying for his drinks with otherpeople's money.
He just kept pointing downthere, pointing down there.
Then you talk to the guy and yougo.
(39:45):
I was confused.
All the money looks the same.
I said, I understand that.
I have to say, I, I had amessage like that, uh, I got
thrown outta your bar lastnight, and it was from my
cousin.
Oh yeah.
And my answer to him was, I knowthey called me before they threw
you out, and I told them tothrow.
I just wanna point out that youguys have, uh, both used
(40:05):
something that was old, oldManish that I do as well, you
said, and there'd be a messageon the machine.
By the way, there's no machines,guys, just to throw that back at
you.
Yeah.
Got you Said the bartenderswould make mint.
Yeah.
Sorry.
I remember I remembered catchmy, I remembered it as cheddar.
We made cheddar last night, socheddar.
(40:28):
Wow, that's old.
Yeah.
Okay, so we're, we're coming tothe close of our interview and I
hope we've given everybody aflavor of this most authentic
dive bar, for me, the one.
Um, but are there any, there is,is there a night that you
remember at the Allen Witch Pubthat was like, either cra a
crazy night or the, what's yourmost memorable night at the, at
(40:50):
the Allen Witch Pub?
Most memorable night.
Boy, I wish you would've askedme this question, uh, ahead of
time.
The most memorable night easilywas, uh, I think it was April,
2007 when smoking was going tostop at midnight.
Ah, inside.
Yeah.
And, and I mean, we had a smokeeater there.
We had a smoke eater there.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And when, when I would comeoutta work, I would have to come
(41:13):
into my house on the side door.
Go into the basement.
Mm-hmm.
Take all my clothes off, put'emin the washing machine.
Run the washing machine, take ashower downstairs, brush my
teeth, clean my ears.
Scrub my nails because youwreaked of cigarette smoke.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Reap the cigarette smoke.
Um, it was a good way of maskingperfume, but Oh.
(41:34):
But, I was so worried becauseyou would win walk in here and
it was just a cloud of smoke.
I said, we're gonna have nothingbut problems at midnight.
Everybody's gonna be goingcrazy.
The lead up to midnight, peoplewere smoking that never, ever
smoked a cigarette before, said,oh, this is gonna be so bad.
Midnight came.
It was just this huge round ofapplause.
Everybody was happy really?
Because we had the outside.
Yeah.
(41:54):
Yeah.
And, and then there were a lotof bar owners saying, and
restaurant owners saying, I'mgonna lose business.
I'm.
Never happened.
Never.
That's the most memorable nightother than when we took the drop
ceiling down.
'cause it used to be, this isthe original uh, 1907 ceiling
and it tin it's tin ceiling now.
Uh, rolled steel ceiling.
Yeah.
Not tin rolled steel.
It was supposed to, it wassupposed to be fireproof, but it
(42:14):
obviously dozen and there werewires crossing everywhere.
And so I would come in everynight with this guy Gary, who
used to help me trying to figureout what the wires are.
They live.
There was just this wirehanging.
I figured, oh, this must be a,this must be a dead wire.
It's not.
The hotel grabbed it, gotzapped, got thrown across the
bar, Gary, that's why they haveelectricians.
Just, you know, Gary looked downat me, go's a very important
(42:36):
job.
Are we done for the evening?
And I'm like, no, we gotta keepgoing.
But that, yeah, when, whencigarette smoking stopped, it
never ever affected us.
That's awesome.
That's good for you.
Oh, and what's odd is you'reprobably the last bar in New
Brunswick that still sellscigarettes behind the bar.
Yeah.
And they're not cheap.
Lemme, I, you know, that's anexpensive habit.
You know, we, what do you chargefor a pack of cigarettes?
(42:57):
$13.
It's amazing.
But you know what, on the, on,on the, it's either the Camel or
the Marlboro brands.
I'm only making like.
Dollars.
Exactly.
Yeah.
And it's not about, and it's notabout making the money, it's
just like about keeping thepeople here.
Yep.
So can I smoke a cigar?
And you're smoking a lounge outthere?
Something?
Oh yeah.
Oh yeah, sure.
The smoking patio is, is, youknow, is still out there.
Well, so let me ask you aquestion about the, about the
current clientele.
So we've talked about it beingan old man bar, a lesbian bar,
(43:20):
biker bar, a hippie bar, coolCollo student bar.
What is it now like?
Who comes here now?
If Mark and I walked in afterwork on a, on a Wednesday night
at 10 o'clock or at six o'clockin the evening, would we feel at
home here or abs?
Absolutely.
Who's coming?
When people ask me that, I tell'em.
It's hippies, hipsters, artists,musicians, Inc.
L-G-B-T-Q, United Nations ofColors, professors, professors
(43:44):
with their students who are over21 that sit here and, and do
discussions as part of a part oftheir class age.
21 to 60, 65, 70.
Notice he made it 65.
Because I'm 60.
I I was at the limit.
I got, I got an extension therefour years at the last minute.
Hey Rob, it has been great.
(44:04):
I know we know each other reallywell, and, and I know You're
podcast listening.
Yes, I am.
Um, if you would like a chanceto win an ALE in witch t-shirt.
You should email us at theguys@restaurantguyspodcast.com
and, uh, and we'll pick a nameout and we'll pick a name out of
a hat and a future episode, um,if you're in New Brunswick.
And you gotta be chill.
You gotta be cool.
(44:24):
And if you are, you can comevisit R one Lewis and Hamilton
here in New Brunswick on theAllen Witch Pub.
Uh, it's been a great time, Rob.
Thanks.
I, I, I appreciate it.
Thank you We'll be back in justa moment and you can always find
out more aboutus@restaurantguyspodcast.com.
(45:03):
Hi everybody.
Welcome back.
It is Mark.
I have to tell you, I am ascomfortable in this bar today as
I was 30, 40 years ago.
Yeah, that's'cause one o'clockin the afternoon, brother.
Yeah.
And I had to get this.
That's, that's true too.
So, so this bar has a, has a lotof fond memories.
But I do want to harken back tosomething Rob said earlier.
(45:23):
Do you remember at the frog ofthe peach when we had the
cigarette drawer?
There was a drawer with packsof, that's what it was for.
It was so people wouldn't gosomeplace else.
Right.
You sold cigarettes by bar?
We sold cigarettes.
Everyone sold cigarettes by thebar and it was, it was in a
drawer and we, and we sold apack of cigarettes and
occasionally we'd have even theopen pack and somebody like.
Can I get one of the, from theopen pack?
(45:44):
Oh yeah.
The singles.
Yeah, the singles.
The singles illegal to sell thesingles.
Well, we didn't sell'em, we justgive'em away, but they're,
they're, occasionally it'd beopen pack for somebody who just
wanted a cigarette.
Two 50.
By the way, we bought the packscost when we first started.
2050 cents.
That's a long, that's a longtime ago.
Uh, so I, we can't leave this,the ail and witch party without
(46:04):
talking about one of the firsttimes I brought Jennifer here,
my, my wife, who's also theproducer of the show.
Yeah.
So what's amazing is she becameyour wife after you brought her
here.
So I'm bringing beers to thetable, and I hand a beer to
Jennifer.
It just slips out of my hand andspills all over her.
Now we're dating weeks.
(46:25):
I mean, it's not, it's not verylong time.
Suave.
Okay.
Suave Mark.
Oh my God.
I'm so sorry.
I'm so sorry.
And of course my reaction isn't,let me clean you up.
My reaction is, let me get youanother beer.
Well, that's, and I knowJennifer, and that I'm sure that
both of your priorities were inthe same place.
Except I went and I got heranother beer.
Yeah.
(46:45):
And I brought it over to heragain.
And I spilled it all over her,the second one all over her.
How have I never heard thisstory?
That's amazing.
it was true love from thatmoment on.
Dude, I, I have to say thankheaven for beautiful women with
poor judgment to men.
That woman married me.
Yeah.
I spilled two entire pints ofbeer on her at the Ale in Witch
(47:08):
in 19 88, 89, and she, and she'sstill married to me today, was
Moonlight Serenade playing inthe two class at the time.
Oh Lord, I, I miss those days.
Listen, I hope you guys haveenjoyed this, uh, walk down
memory lane with the restaurantguys.
I'm Francis Shot.
And I'm Mark Pascal.
We're the restaurant guys.
(47:29):
You can always find out moreabout
us@restaurantguyspodcast.com.
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