Tavern on Jane: Where Everyone Does Indeed Know Your Name

By Gary Stern

It was October 1995 and Michael Stewart and his partner, Horton Foote Jr., wanted to open a neighborhood restaurant and bar somewhere in Manhattan. They looked at storefronts in Gramercy Park, Hell’s Kitchen and the Theater District but saw nothing that clicked. They were looking for a “turnkey” situation, a functioning eatery which didn’t require costly rebuilding.

Finally they ended up in the West Village on Jane Street and Eighth Avenue and found a defunct seafood eatery that worked for them. They named it Tavern on Jane. Despite the pandemic, rising prices and all sorts of volatility, Tavern on Jane just celebrated its 30th anniversary and has become a fixture in the neighborhood where, as in the old sitcom Cheers, “everyone knows your name.”

Their original goal was to make the restaurant “community-oriented, an extension of the neighborhood, to make it a local nightly place,” Stewart explains. He had been a bartender at Walker’s in Tribeca, another local watering hole that had thrived for years, where he learned the ins and outs of what it takes to engage customers.

The partners invested $85,000 from Foote and $65,000 from Stewart to capitalize the eatery, without needing any other investors, and were on their way. Foote moved on to other ventures in 2014 when Stewart acquired his share and assumed sole ownership.

“We wanted to serve good, quality, home-style food at a reasonable price, where we made everything from scratch including our own dressing. Fresh food at great value,” Stewart says. The original hamburger with fries and coleslaw cost $9 and now goes for $25.

The menu has an array of options from appetizers like chicken wings and crab cake sliders to a Cobb salad, half-chicken with baked potato, fish and chips, and spaghetti and meatballs. Two of my friends, who don’t live in the neighborhood, but liked dining there became known as “fish and chips” and “half chicken” because of their preference for always ordering those entrees.

One of its first regulars, Dorie Levine who lived down the block in a Jane Street penthouse, sometimes invited the other barflies there for food. Her photo is on the walls, though she died several years ago.

Stewart, because of his bartending background, has a knack for remembering names, making everyone feel welcome and encouraging that Cheers-like atmosphere. Scores of couples have met at the Tavern on the Jane bar, gotten married, and now bring their children and grandkids there to show them the spot where they shared their first draft beers or glasses of wine.

And Stewart treats his employees well, exemplified by Michael Huston, a server and sometimes stand-up comic, Hugo Amador, long-time chef, and Ernesto Rocha, the porter, working there for circa 20 years.

There are two TVs atop the bar where regulars come in to check on the Yankee, Mets, Rangers, Knicks, Giants, and Jets games. But Stewart emphasizes, “We’re not a sports bar and we didn’t want the TVs to be the main focus.”

The room in the back, which can accommodate about 24 people, has been the space for private get-togethers where guests organize birthday parties, bridal and wedding showers as well as Christenings, and memorial services. It’s where the local morning klatsch from nearby coffeeshop Bonsignour has its annual holiday party.

In the near future, Stewart expects to meet with the landlord and negotiate another 10-year lease to keep Tavern on Jane in the flow. “I’d like to continue what I’m doing for another 10 years,” he says, hinting that this lease could wrap up his tenure, which would then be 40-years.

Stewart tried to expand when he opened Sister Jane in the East Village in 2017 as another local eatery, but the pandemic led to an early 2020 closing. It reopened as Hermana, a Mexican restaurant, before the recurring effects of the pandemic slowdown led to its demise. Prior to that, he once owned Tavern on Dean in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn from 2000 until 2010.

But Stewart admits that keeping a neighborhood eatery going has gotten harder in the last few years. “Costs have risen so much, and rent is higher, so it’s tougher keeping the tradition we’ve had for years alive,” he says.

Asked the secrets to Tavern on Jane’s 30-year legacy, Stewart replied, “1) Treat people the way they like to be treated. 2) Keep the food consistent and provide quality food at a moderate price. 3) Keep all of the employees satisfied, because “the staff is an extension of myself,” Stewart cites. And one thing he left out: knowing the names of as many regulars as possible.