Rob D'Elia: Diving into Dive Bars at The Ale 'n 'Wich!

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

the-restaurant-guys_3_07-31-2025_141333: 1:27

Hello everybody and welcome. You are listening to the Restaurant Guys. I'm Mark Pascal and I'm here with Francis Shot. Together we own stage left and Ka Lombardi restaurants here in New Brunswick, New Jersey. We're here to bring you the inside 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 our guest today is gonna be Rob Aliya from the Ail and Witch Pub. We're gonna head over there after this nine minutes and interview him in person on site at a bar that you may not have heard of, but is very important to you and me. It's gonna be an all New Brunswick show today. We're, we're happy about that. Uh, today we have to talk about one of the most serious topics that a restaurant. 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 one you're thinking about. Ice. Ice behind the bar. Okay. ice behind the bar. Francis and I have talked about it ad nauseum, right? We've talked about how important ice is to have the right ice to all those things, but I'm still surprised at how wrong. Some places get it. And you and I were at a wedding recently and they had the wrong kind of ice. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. They didn't have any alternative, but they didn't just have the wrong kind of ice. and this, you really have to be careful about at a wedding or a place where you, you have a standalone bar. Okay. Okay. Where you have a bar that's like an auxiliary, oh, I know what you're gonna say to your, to your other bar. so we had the, the really small cubes that kind of bend together. So they, they all come together in the glass and they, they really get a lot of fill on the glass 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 were the half moons. Okay. It was, the bar was set up too early. Oh, okay. Yeah. So the ice was melted. So the half moons were half, half moons swimming in water. So they were just, they were wet. Okay. Yeah. And they, they weren't at temperature, right? So they turned to water in one second. Right? An ice cube. Can be 20 degrees below zero. Right, right, right. An ice cube can be very, very cold. Right. Right. and then that coldness goes into your drink. And depending on what temperature the cube is and the size of the cube decides how much water's gonna go into your drink. Right. Well, the bar was tremendously adorned. The bar had great products behind it, and I had a Macallan 12-year-old scotch and. The bartender put this slushy ice, so the scotch and water into my drink. I, I didn't, I, I could not have told you 45 seconds into my drink that I was drinking scotch. Really? Yeah, I bet it was all water. It was, it was, the drink was 85% water, in, in a minute. Well, you know, the funny thing is, and I think I want to clarify how ICE works for the listeners, and there's different shapes of ice. You, well, clarifying ice is, we don'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, but how ice works and you drink and why, like the cold rocks don't work in your drink. If you ever saw the rocks that they, you sell for scotch mm-hmm. That you keep in your freezer and you put in your, in your whiskey, the reason they don't work is. It's not just coming into contact with a cold thing that makes your drink cold. Ice melting is an endothermic reaction. So the act of the ice melting, oh, it's getting dorky, is absorbing heat, right? So if your ice is all but melted and you've only got a little bit left to melt and it's turns to water, you don't get a lot of that reaction. But if you've got nice. Big, thick, cold ice cube, you get a little bit of cooling from just having a, an even colder than melting temperature. Mm-hmm. Ice cube. And then you get all that melt that comes in slowly and that reaction keeps happening and it keeps on cooling your drink. But if it's all but melted, you get it in, it cools you, it 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 of the glass never really get the scotch cold is because something has to Mel, they don't melt into the, they don't melt into the drink. And as soon as that ice is like adding a little cold water to your scotch is not the same as adding ice to your scotch. That ice cube is a, is an engine of a certain size in relation to what else is in your glass, and it's really important and. It's hard to get, catering places don't often get it right. A lot of bars don't get it right. There's a lot of really great ice out there now too. Okay. You can, I, I mean, I won't, I, I won't forget my ex, my first experience we were, I was at Donovan Bar in London and I got one of these perfectly diamond. Yeah. Yeah. Ice cubes, well, not Japanese style ice diamonds, right? Mm-hmm. Right. But it was perfect. Mm-hmm. Okay. You would like, you would think that somebody actually cut a diamond, and they had this great cocktail that, and they painted the side of the glass, so the colors were fracted through the diamond and into the drink, and it was really interesting and, fantastic in its own way, but. The place. Never forgot that. The main purpose of that ice cube Yeah. Was to get it cold, was to cool the drink and create a certain amount of melt in that drink. So yes. Cool. Interesting. Fascinating. Visually interesting. All great. But you still have to have the right amount of ice and melt and coldness in your drink. Well, and the thing is like, look. You don't have to get into calculating this at home, but if you have like crushed ice, like good cold, crushed ice mm-hmm that's going to melt faster, chill your drink more, but ute it quicker than one big cube and then having regular sized ice cubes versus one big cube that it's going to melt at different rates. Providing more or less cooling for 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 actually solid matter. It is, it is actually. Okay. It's one of the three states of matter. It's, it's true. so that's, that's very good. Um, but I, I do wanna, it was terrible, just like your terrible joker earlier. I was trying to be kind, so, but what I. I want to talk about clear ice. It's possible to make clear ice at home. You can buy stuff@amazon.com. Uh, if you want, I'm putting a link of this show. I'll send you a link to what, what I use in my home refrigerator to make big, clear ice cubes. It's really amazing. Um, but if you, your ice cubes in the freezer, the reason they get cloudy is'cause as the water. Crystallizes. The gas that is suspended in the water is released and it gets trapped in the middle there, and there's a way to deal with that. As far as clear ice is concerned, that's really just aesthetic. Mm-hmm. But it's a beautiful aesthetic, and if you're having drinks, you may as well do the aesthetic thing, but your ice cubes at home from an ice cube tray, those solid cubes of ice are probably better than most restaurants use with their hollow cubes or their half moons. And it makes a pretty good drink. And to the restaurant. Out there. Make sure you're constantly putting new ice on top of your old ice, in your ice bins because you, you're getting that melt. the change in temperatures happening to the Cuban, you're causing your ice to melt too fast. Well, and what's, and what's also happening is if you are in the, in the business, if you have 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 podcast world, you've done this at home. If you have, he's shaking his finger too. Be careful. If you have a cooler of ice at home and you wanna get your beers cold in it, you let the ice kind of melt, you throw some water in there so everything sloshes around and the water conducts the cold to your beers. But if you wanna have ice to make drinks at home, open that little plug in the bottom'cause you want the water to drain out. As it as it goes, so your ice stays dry. So the way commercial ice machines work, ice bins, uh, is ice bins. So the machine drops it into a bin and there's a drain on the bottom and it slowly melts out and, and drains out from the bottom. And we keep getting fresh ice on the top, but the ice is always dry in the bin, in the restaurant. There's a drain on the bottom that 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 water away from the ice. So that refresh ice is as is necessary, but it really makes a huge difference. So the quality of the drink. So Francis, I would just like the entire. Guest list of the restaurant guys to know exactly how persnickety I am. Okay, so last night had a, a mixers, uh, 10-year-old rye, and I wanted a big ice cube to get it cold. And so I had a big ice cube in my mixers, 10-year-old rye uhhuh, but then it got to just the perfect dilution and perfect coldness. So I had to reach into my glass and take the what was left of the giant ice cube out of my rye, so that I would, so that it wouldn't melt anymore and make it, and make it more dilute. You could talk to 90% of the world and they would think that that made you persnickety. You know that I do that every fricking time. I, it's like, ah, perfect right now. Yeah. And you know what I do sometimes is I take it out and I put it on the side or from the Sidewalk Cafe. Mm-hmm. I'll just throw it in the planter. Yeah. You just, ice is a tool and. I gotta get it outta my drink and I'm not afraid to use my fingers. Oh no, absolutely not. It's just ice. It's just water. It's clean. Alcohol kills the germs. Well, if this conversation hasn't left you cold, uh, stick with us. We're gonna talk, we're gonna talk to Rob. Elliot made me groan. You made me groan. we're gonna talk to Rob Delia from the Ail and Witch Pub in New Brunswick, New Jersey, which has been here for a very long time. And it's where Francis had his first legal Guinness at about 10 minutes after midnight on his 21st birthday. We'll be back in just a moment. You can always find out more about the restaurant guys@restaurantguyspodcast.com.

the-restaurant-guys_1_07-17-2025_122047: 11:06

Hey there everybody. Welcome back. Today you are with the restaurant 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 Witch Pub is an institution in this town and it's actually the. The bar where I had my first legal drink on my 21st birthday, and Mark and I are sitting here with Rob and we have three Guinnesses poured in front of us. 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 how many illegal drinks did you have here before he turned year or so? Statute limitations is, let's remember that 1985 licenses were still made of paper, so. You know, as long as your physical characteristics were close, you could hand somebody a paper license. The statute of limitations is over. The guy, there was a guy, uh, the head of me in school, his name was Brad Anthony, and he loaned me his paper license and then I got the backup documentation. I started coming here when I was 20, and then it was my 21st birthday and I lived several blocks from here. I lived on French and Seamen Street and at, at a big party. And Mark, you were at the party So midnight on March 14th, we walked down with my sisters and I had my first legal drink here. And, uh, and so my name changed for Brad Anthony to Francis Shop on that night. It was great. It was a great time and I, I think we first met either the late eighties or the early nineties. I think it was the late eighties. Back then, it was, I remember it being July, we had an air conditioner over the door. We had an air conditioner in the window, and there's Francis leaning up against a jukebox that 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 my motorcycle safety first. Man. It was a and and you didn't want see what was under No, like he was a pencil neck geek. So he had the, kept the motorcycle jacket on. Took that, I had long hair. It was a shot perfecto jacket. And if you wanted to pick up girls 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 that you. Or having a party at your house and somebody reached in through the window on the fire escape and stole that jacket. That's why we need local bar owners, everybody, because you have all the stories. So that Indeed was the same jacket I, rode all around America on my motorcycle with that jacket, and I lived at a different house, wasn't it, over here? 86 Lewis Street, which doesn't exist anymore. I stopped on my way here and it's just been torn down But I had, you would think that it would become a historical landmark. I know at this point. I know, right? Know. so I had my jacket on the kitchen table, but it was close to the kitchen window, and some kid 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 is soul. but he was a pool hustler and he used to hustle pool up at Patrick's, so he knew all the local scumbags. And so he's like, so, so I tell the story, I'm at work. He worked for us at, at stage, left and tell us the story says stuff, and Brian Mack shows up with my jacket two days later. I'm like. Where did you find that? He's like, ah, Patrick's, you know, I found out who stole it. I bought it back from him. You owe me$7. I was insulted by how little I had to pay to get it back.$7 back then you could drink all day at Patrick's. You could probably drink all day at Patrick's now at$7. but this bar, it's, well it's been an institution in this town forever, right? I mean, literally before we were here, this bar was here. Before any of us were here, this bar was here. Yeah. And the building has, you know, history. As well. And it goes back, it was other iterations before it was built in 1907. It was originally a tailor shop on the main floor. And they were European, they lived, their apartment was where the pool room was, was their bedroom, uhhuh. And their kitchen is where the game room is. And the only bathroom was where the ladies' room was. No shower, no tub. And from there it became a dry, good store. And then in 1934 it became the Hamilton Grill and the pool room was where the band would sit because if you didn't have a quartet. Playing. You couldn't serve liquor. You. No. You weren't getting any business. Every really, if you ever look in those old New Brunswick, guide magazines. Yeah. Magazines and guides. They have, everybody had a trio or a quartet plane. Mm-hmm. I mean, Hamilton Street was all bars. All bars all the way down. Well, it's so we've had a great resurgence here in New Brunswick. It's been really terrific. So that was the case back then, right? You always had live music everywhere.'cause if you wanted music, it was live music, right? And. There's a group called New Brunswick Jazz Project, and they brought live music back to the, the downtown. The downtown. To the downtown. Well, we're not, we're not in a downtown right now. Right. But we're only, you know, three quarters 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 gonna have live music three or four days a week. Well, but what I wanna say about this place, so for those of you who are listening, and may we'll post some pictures up, or maybe we'll throw some stuff on Instagram so you can see. This place. And I know I may be prejudiced because this is the first bar. Oh, I know. You're pre prejudiced about this bar for sure. Yeah. I, because it was my first bar, Uhhuh and it was my local, right. So I lived within a few blocks of, here Francis moved like four times. Yeah. while he was in New Brunswick. But he made sure never to be more than two blocks away, which he basically, this was the center, but, and he just, and he just rotated around this, this, this, but it was where everybody knew your name. Every, and you, I knew every bartender from, so when I first started coming here, the bar manager was Alex v God bless Alex. And, uh, he has also passed away. I'm hard to say sadly, but Alex became a good friend of mine, uh, and I, I turned 21, uh, and got a job as a bartender at the frog and the peach the same month. And so once you're a bartender. In the bartender's bar, you know, and I used to stop in and I would stop in because you guys had 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 and play darts before going to work and drink club soda and hang out with Alex. And then I would come after work and, and drink. But this was a, and drag whoever who, whoever, whoever would come with him, he would drag to play darts. 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 and you simply know that it feels like it's always been here, and it feels like when I walked into this place for the first time in 1985, mark and Jen, you guys feel the same way. Yeah. No offense. It looks a little bit like the same place. Yeah. You know, we, we try to maintain the look. But when I first walked in, which was also in the eighties, um, being from Jersey City and from being from a neighborhood where there was literally a bar in every corner mm-hmm. I walked in, I looked around, I was like, where am I? I know. I feel like I've been here before. Yeah. I never was before. Yeah. And I've never left. And it said local and, and people use this now and, and I think the terms actually become an ingratiating term now. Right. It's a, it's a term of endearment. dive bar. Oh yeah. It's the dive bar. Okay. It is, this is the most authentic dive bar. In New Jersey maybe, but certainly in New Brunswick. I like to consider it a glorified dive bar. We were a couple of years ago, the number, the uh, number five dive bar in New Jersey according to New Jersey magazine. Mm-hmm. Right. Which, which was, which was great. Um, you know, they say what makes a dive bar weird things hanging on the walls that you normally, would you have that wouldn't say, we've got plenty of that. That's a mighty duck banner, I believe. Uh, yes it is. Uh, some of my bartenders are diehard ducks fans, but, um, you know, we've have, we have everything except. The dog laying in the corner, which we used to have. I remember the dog. Oh yeah. Laying in the, but you know, the thing about it is though I've seen people open, quote unquote dive bars and try to make them look like an old bar and put a bunch of crazy things on the wall. This is stuff that has just collected over. Decades. And maybe each thing wasn't that weird as it went up, but now it's like, oh, you can't touch that. You know? Yeah. And you know, it's, it's a, it's a, people give us stuff. They say, I'm graduating, I'm not, you know, I'm moving, I'm going to med school or something. And they go, can, can I give you this? 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 big picture of that gentleman, he had his, uh. He was a Rutgers student. He had his 30th birthday party here and everybody had those faces and he says, can I put this up on this box? I'm like, yeah, sure, you can put it up there. So I remember when I was a college student, this was a bar that didn't seek out college students, and to the extent it sought out college students, it didn't seek out mainstream college students. So, through the years as I was coming here, it was an old man's bar in the afternoon. And what's ironic about that is I snuck in here as an underage kid, and now I'm an old man sitting in the old man's bar thinking about those old guys. I am now an old guy. Um, but you know, there were old guys at be here in the afternoon. It was a lesbian bar for a while. A lot of, there was a big lesbian contingent around that pool table, which is a, a mini pool table. Then it was a college student barber that it was like artists and hippies and deadheads and not the frat fraternity college avenue. Which, which which we have here in town. Different, different downtown. I worked in one of them, so, you know, back in, back in college. But why has this been always kind of a off the beaten path, not the mainstream. And is it still, it it, you don't. Students don't know about us unless another student tells'em or if they live in the neighborhood. Mm-hmm. Right. Um, I, you get people that may be in their fourth year of college and they'll, they'll move in, they'll move in somewhere on Hamilton Street and they go, I never knew this place existed. Yeah. You know, and, you know, that kind 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 the phone, didn't recognize the name, didn't recognize the voice. He walked in. We just looked at each other and pointed a fingers at each other. He goes, I know you. He goes, you were my bartender when I was in college. I says, yeah, I'm the owner now. That's great. And so, so it gets passed down and, and his daughter hung out here the entire time. All. Well, I will tell you what hurts more than that. Is we're now getting grandchildren of the people who came in 30 years ago coming into our, coming into our restaurant. Yeah. Right. Oh boy, that's rough. So, you know, one of the things that I remember from, in the days of yours, you used to have a 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, the video 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're stuck with what we have. I mean, we have foosball and we have an original Miss Pacman I saw that's analog, not digital, and it's a big difference. Mm-hmm. And, you know. One of the few, other than Patrick's, I don't think any other, the bar in New Brunswick has a pool table. Well, um, the thing that I remember you had for a long time, and these aren't really relevant anymore, but you guys had a jukebox. Sure. And what I loved about the jukebox here was it was this crazy mix and it was real vinyl inside the jukebox. And it was a crazy mix of like the most contemporary European bands that were, you know. Not widely available here. A lot of cool music, a lot of like Steppen Wolf and, uh, little bit of Joan Jett, a little bit of Joan Jett. But there was a little section of, and this is before you owned the place of forties music, and my father's favorite, second favorite song. And my favorite song was always Moonlight Sarah Knight, made by Glen Miller. And every time I came in here, I would play Moonlight Serenade by Glen Miller. nobody else ever played Moonlight Serenade by Glen Miller. So it got to the point where the whole bar would groan whenever and, and then somebody would be like, oh my God, Francis is here. All right. So I want, so all of you now who are listening can. Go Google Moonlight serenade and realize really how old Francis is. Oh, it was great World War ii, man. It was, uh, it was a different time. Um, so I love the island witch pop, but back in the day there were some people that hung out here. What time you gonna say back in the day? The show today? A lot. I think. A lot. Um, but back in the day, we, you had, we had some. Pretty famous people or people who weren't yet, they had some famous people. Mm-hmm. And you had some people who weren't yet famous, who were gonna be famous, who just hung out 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 hang out here all the time. Right. he was roommates with a bartender, 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 the apartments? Yeah. Brookside Terrace. Brookside Apartments. Brookside apartment. That's where Alex lived as well. And then, uh, you had Jerry Garcia made an appearance here. Jerry Gar. We have Jerry Gar. Jerry Garcia, the Grateful Dead Plead the um. The rack, I think, was that what it was called at Rutgers? The rack, the Rutgers of the center. And, and as much as God bless Bob McGee as much as Bob McGee hated the Grateful Dead and hated all the hippies that hung out here,'cause we went through a hippie phase and uh, they. He wound up here after the show, sat in the corner at the old table. The old table is still upstairs, still get young kids coming in. Hey, my dad told me you got a table that Jerry Garcia sat up. I said, really? Yeah, yeah. Take him upstairs. They take a picture next to the table. That's awesome. But yeah, that's it. And Jim Babak and um, the bass player whose name escapes me from, the Smither rings. Mm-hmm. They lived above what was the lawyer's office across the street. Smiths spent a lot of time in New Brunswick. Yeah. They were here a lot. The, uh, nobody knows who the Smither arenas are except people precisely our age. So great band, but they were a great band, new Brunswick centered to be fair to Bob McGee. And, you know, having the, the hippies are not known for their massive tipping. Yeah, that's true. Bob McGee was the manager. So after Alex and Bob became the manager, Bob McGee became the manager, you know, did a lot of things for the witch that are, that are still here. He was amazing. They were both amazing, amazing guys. Amazing guys Gone way too young. Yeah. A lot of influences in the bar that, 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. Ask James. Okay. The smell's gone. You did it. Congratulations. That's because the cats and the dogs 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 same bar you have. It didn't want, didn't want it to change. And so I, I tried real hard to get, added some new things, did some things differently. Uh, but basically if you walked in here and you hadn't been here 30 years. You would sit down and go, it's the same bar. and you know, it's interesting'cause I think some places become a museum of their former self or a shadow of their former self. This is. What it's always been, it's as vibrant and alive and as part of the community as ever. So I'm gonna remind Francis of something. Uh oh. We did here about 25 years ago. Dude, there are so many things you could remind me of that I don't necess, this is not 25 years ago. Okay. Alright. Uh, we had the staff Christmas party here. Mm-hmm. I remember you guys opened early for us. Mm-hmm. And we did the staff Christmas party from like, I don't know. Four to seven, something like that. And then you guys opened at seven and, and staff could do what they wanted and we, we brought the staff in here and they raised some holy hell and, not all good things happen. Well, we left and let them and let them all become your problem. Um, did you, did you take your credit card with ufo? Yeah, we closed the tab and left, closed the tab and left. And we had a no shots rule while we were here. I don't know what they did after, of, so you are a part of the community. You're, you're dialed into New Brunswick yourself and before you, Bob McGee was dialed into the community and so was Alex vs. But I remember the interesting people behind the bar. You would come here. And Alex, who just knew everything. And Alex was a genius. When he left bartending, he went and became a professor in like three years. Yeah. Unbelievable. And then, um. Bob McGee was a, was a savant. He, bob was everything about sports. Every ev photographic memory, who wants to be a millionaire? Bob McGee would be my guy to call. Oh, yeah. Best question. And what I loved about him, he had tons of energy too. He was just a super energy. And he was also like a really tall, really good looking guy. Yeah. And being a young, tall, good looking bartender. You're never bored on your night off, you know what I'm saying? But what he used to do is we'd come in and one of my, he would put people in their place because you have the, the dartboard you have, which is very important to mm-hmm. Making the bar a bar. Um, he would, he was such a good dart player. He would literally be behind the bar, lean out over the bar. Throw three bullseye and beat you without stepping out behind the bar. And it was always great to watch him sucker somebody new into 20 bucks. You want to talk about Suckering? Jeopardy. Jeopardy was big here. Yeah. When we were open very early and he would come down and he would start rattling off answers Rat. And the the final jeopardy question. Wasn't. Two years later we found out he was watching it a half an hour early upstairs, because we had the dish. He was watching it out of Philly, I love, and then he would come down and he would just 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, he would do the same thing with Pete, uh, my ex partner's, uh, dad. He, Pete would come down and watch the races. 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 gonna win. Nah, he's not gonna win. That's, and, and then people are like, 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 your ex-partner and his dad. He used to live upstairs? Yes. He, he lived upstairs. He, he, he mopped the, the bar every day. Took a hundred dollars out of the register every morning, went to OTB in Staten Island. Wow. And we get, we get phone calls. You're a hundred dollars short. Check your father's ticket stubs. 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 is back in the day when we would, we would stay here after the bar closed, till the sun came up and you knew it was time to leave when 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 hospitality bar. Yep. Uh, for a very, very long time. Oh yeah. The bar, the bartenders were in the, you know, when the bar was open till 3:00 AM and the, the big saying was, if you don, you know, uh, bar's closed, you gotta leave. Unless you work for a restaurant or a bar, you can say, yeah. And, turn the lights down low shut the music off. The statute of limitations has expired. City officials are listening. We don't do that anymore. Nobody, nobody would bother us. From, and you knew to, you knew you had to be quiet. You know, you couldn't get rowdy. You couldn't go out on the street and start screaming at, at five o'clock in the morning. It was civilized. I remember. So we talk often about Sasha Petrowski who had milk and nunny mm-hmm. In New York City and how he was, one of the reasons he became quote unquote speakeasy is'cause he was afraid his neighbors were gonna shut his, shut him down. And his landlord was a friend of his. He said, if you disturb the neighborhood, I'm going to not renew your lease and you're got a one year lease. It was the same way here at the Allen Witch. Absolutely. It was a more mature crowd. People took care of the bar, and I know there were some nights where there was somebody who worked 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 one person to be alone in a bar. Right. Because if somebody hits the bartender over the head. What do you do? Um, but there were nights when this place would have just the bartender in it, but it was okay.'cause if you mess with the bartender, 36 regulars, yeah, were gonna take care of the fucking problem. There's, there's quite a few nights 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 and I turn around, there's like four people standing up. Alright. Thank you. I, I know enough to keep arms length away from anybody that might punch me. Yeah. I, I, uh, I will tell you, I know for sure that Francis and I left this bar some nights and we, and we would walk outside and go, Hey, we gotta be quiet because the neighbors of the plane. All right. Speak for yourself. Yeah, speak for yourself. I do know I was here one night with a friend of mine got thrown out and literally I am the most regular, regular of regulars in this bar. And I thought that I was gonna get thrown out because I, it was, it was a, a friend of ours named Bill, who's a wonderful, intelligent, he's a successful guy. He is. And just this one night he went. Way over and uncharacteristically, he started singing the Rutgers song on the banks of the, the old, old Raan, except his version of it was on the 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 words and the banks of the old very 10. But why we got thrown out is he got the whole bar. Way too rowdy singing that. And they were like, you gotta get your friend outta here. Think we got another Bob McGee somebody. I mean, the songs were on the jukebox, and this is probably when we had CD Jukebox and there were many, many songs that annoyed Bob McGee and a song would come on, Bob would pause it and go, who played that song? And somebody be very practically Rick Hand. Hand. I did. Get the fuck out, get out of the bar, come back tomorrow. Don't ever play that song again. That's classic. And and they would look at Bob like he's kidding. Right? And people regret No, Hey listen, we're gonna take a quick baker and we're gonna come back on the other side. We're gonna talk more with Rob I'm gonna get myself another Guinness and we're gonna hang out at the Allen Witch Pub in New Brunwick, New Jersey. We're gonna let you know how to get to the Ellen Witch Pub in the show notes, and after the break we're gonna give you a chance to win Alan Witch t-shirt, even if you don't live here, we'll be back in just a moment. Hey everybody. Welcome back. We with Rob Delia at the Allen Witch 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: 33:03

So Rob, I'm not sure if you know this, but one of the old regulars from when I went to college and a little bit after from this bar guy by the name of Brett 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's beers and live music. He loved your name and he loved this place so much and he stole it. Well, he changed it from, yeah, from like the, the little sandwich version to the W-I-T-C-H. And it was total homage total. Like he loved this place so much that when he opened his own place,

Rob: 33:39

did he survive COVID. He did. That's a shame. He's still there. No, I I, I know, I, I've seen pictures of it and it looks like a really, really cool place. Yeah. It's got an outdoor patio that's a place right outside of it and stuff. That's that place. And, and I had been back, uh, I had been in touch with him. He never told me of, of the connection. That's like when, uh, I guess I could talk about this'cause it no longer exists. The Ale House on George Street. George Street, El House. Yeah. I, I saw, I saw their logo. I called'em up, I go, Hey, have you ever seen our logo? Yeah. They're like, they're like, oh, you know,'cause they were trying to capitalize on a and witch ale house thinking like, you know, ale House comes before, you know, ale and witch if somebody Googles it, but God bless Google you, you put in bar in New Brunswick or a pool table. Which pub right at the top of the, but you should feel really good about it because

Mark: 34:24

Brett

Rob: 34:24

loves you guys. He loved you guys, and it was a total homage to, Hey, this is the one of my favorite places I've ever been. So let me try and try and recreate this in. Well, if you, if you talk to him, tell him I'd love to stop in there. I just need two first class tickets. Yeah. A hotel for a week. A private driver and that sounds fair. And everything on him. That sounds fair. I'm glad he is doing well. I really hate to see anybody not do well. Okay, so we gotta ask you, there was the A and witch pub became the ale. Remember the witch pub, You can bring your own sandwiching. Exactly. One of the few places in New Brunswick. You can order in whatever you want. You can bring in in whatever you want. If he needs to be heated up, the bartends will put it in the microwave, heat it up for you. It's the only place. So just so you know in our place, we won't heat something for you. Just that that's not how it works. so we do have restaurant operators who listen to the show, right? And it's not ex exclusively set at 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 is to have long-term employees that you trust, but. You are not here every night, but you hear a lot during the day and you just said, if you're not there, you're gonna get ripped off. So what is it that you do during the day and how do you make sure as a single operator that you don't get ripped off by your bartenders at night in a bar that has a lot of cash going through? Okay. First off, I have an amazing staff. I have people that have been with me for years that I totally 100% trust. I used to be a bartender. I know what goes on behind the bar. I know that, Hey, here's my buddy. Here's a drink. I understand that. Yeah. You know, uh. Everything that happens here when I come in the next morning, I've been doing this long enough and it's something I really can't explain to you. I mean, you guys probably know it. Yeah. I can walk into the bar and I can just look around. You're like, there's some scotch missing and, and we have an inventory system upstairs and, and everybody's honest, and I got, you know, and I know what staff drinks what and when they're working on, no, but you know, I, I have that leeway with them because I need to trust them. Mm-hmm. They need to trust me. They make suggestions to me. I'm not a beer drinker, I'm not a whiskey drinker. They come in, they say, you gotta get this, you gotta try this. You know, like things like bullet and, the white claws that came in. And so I trust them. Without them, there would be no be no awi. And, you know, I've got the, the registers on my cell phone, the registers on my iPad. Uh, you have to trust them. You know, there are a lot of people, well, there are a lot of people that don't trust their employees. And every employee that I have working for me came from a recommendation. From an employee. Well, I, I also wanna point out something 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 and verify. Yeah. Trust and verify. The old dets, when we, when we had de taunt with the Soviet Union, it was, it was trust but verify. Exactly. So you say, listen, keep all your nuclear weapons out where I can see'em. I'll keep all my nuclear weapons out where I can see'em. There's a camera there. Don't screw me. And if you screw me once, our philosophy is if you lie to me or steal from me. That's it. It's because you can never regain the trust of stealing. You make a mistake, you do something wrong. But when you get people like we, we have the same philosophy, long-term employees whom you trust, who they know, you would never screw them. And so you can trust that they won't screw you, but you get to trust and verify. Just like they should verify their paycheck every week to make sure that you don't make a mistake in their hours. And there's nothing wrong with that. Um, but you know, we, we trust that we won't screw each other. But it's hard in this business, don't it? It is hard. But, you know, the good thing is, is you know, you know. I can go away now there's a certain lead up to me going away. I have to work really, really hard before I go away. Yeah, I gotta make sure everything's here. You know, all the liquor you need, all the fruit you need, all the juices you need, you know, make sure everybody's banks are right. Extra, extra singles, extra quarters, extra fives, cigarettes. You know where one of the few places that sells cigarettes still Jesus. So. This is old school. Well, you don't want a customer leaving to go buy a cigarette. No.'cause they may never come back. Right. So you want to keep, and we have the outdoor smoking patio, so there's a big lead up to me going away. But I have people that work for me, 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 hours still and you're not behind the bar at night. No. What is it that your day consists of when you get here? I walk through the patio and I'm looking 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, I look at the air tanks. Uh, is there enough air I go walk 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, I go up into the liquor room, I check the empty bottles, So you do the inventorying yourself? Yeah, I do. I do. You know, we have a. Ordering liquor for me is very easy. Bartender kills a bottle, goes upstairs, signs out, another bottle, puts it down. I look at it and I go, I need a case of this. Nobody throws out a bottle, but you, nobody throws out a bottle. Ah, that's good bottle, empty bottle ordering Mark. And I love that system. It's a great system. And like I said, I, you know, I trust my people and when there's a problem, they do not hesitate to call me. But sometimes there's problems they deal with themselves and I don't know about it. I'll find out about a week later, Hey, somebody told me that. I figured didn't need to know. He says, oh, really didn't need to know. I, I will tell you something that, that we've done, and we did it 25 years ago, is a management log at the end of the night. And so the, so I get a list of basically everything that happened during the course of the evening. They they send an email to all the bartender sends one and the matri bartender to make is that everything bad that happens. Everything that happens good and bad. So your regular customers who came 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 fall behind In the middle of service was, did we not handle a must? Big, that must big log. No, it's just an email that goes out to everybody and every morning I get, we get three emails and, and we're like, IM takes them 10 minutes to write. But not only goes to us, it goes to our other matrix. We're a bigger, bigger organization. Right. So everybody reads what the closing. Matri d or bartender said last night, and for us, so let's say, uh, there's a problem. Well, if I walk in and there's a message on a machine from the problem customer, I already have a log of what, what happened last night? And, oh, I had to throw this guy out, or, oh, we really messed up. And we need to apologize to this guy. And those are two very different conversations, right? Oh, yeah. No, I, I mean, I, I've had that myself. You know, I'll come in and there'll be, you know, at 4:00 AM message on the answering machine, and I have to listen to it a couple of times. I was kicked outta your bar last night. I don't know why I didn't do anything wrong. And I said, yeah, you know. Then I talked to the bartender and they go, yeah, he kept paying for his drinks with other people's money. He just kept pointing down there, pointing down there. Then you talk to the guy and you go. I was confused. All the money looks the same. I said, I understand that. I have to say, I, I had a message like that, uh, I got thrown outta your bar last night, and it was from my cousin. Oh yeah. And my answer to him was, I know they called me before they threw you out, and I told them to throw. I just wanna point out that you guys have, uh, both used something that was old, old Manish that I do as well, you said, and there'd be a message on the machine. By the way, there's no machines, guys, just to throw that back at you. Yeah. Got you Said the bartenders would make mint. Yeah. Sorry. I remember I remembered catch my, I remembered it as cheddar. We made cheddar last night, so cheddar. Wow, that's old. Yeah. Okay, so we're, we're coming to the close of our interview and I hope we've given everybody a flavor 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 Pub that was like, either cra a crazy night or the, what's your most memorable night at the, at the Allen Witch Pub? Most memorable night. Boy, I wish you would've asked me this question, uh, ahead of time. The most memorable night easily was, uh, I think it was April, 2007 when smoking was going to stop at midnight. Ah, inside. Yeah. And, and I mean, we had a smoke eater there. We had a smoke eater there. Yeah. Yeah. And when, when I would come outta work, I would have to come into my house on the side door. Go into the basement. Mm-hmm. Take all my clothes off, put'em in the washing machine. Run the washing machine, take a shower downstairs, brush my teeth, clean my ears. Scrub my nails because you wreaked of cigarette smoke. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Reap the cigarette smoke. Um, it was a good way of masking perfume, but Oh. But, I was so worried because you would win walk in here and it was just a cloud of smoke. I said, we're gonna have nothing but problems at midnight. Everybody's gonna be going crazy. The lead up to midnight, people were smoking that never, ever smoked a cigarette before, said, oh, this is gonna be so bad. Midnight came. It was just this huge round of applause. Everybody was happy really? Because we had the outside. Yeah. Yeah. And, and then there were a lot of bar owners saying, and restaurant owners saying, I'm gonna lose business. I'm. Never happened. Never. That's the most memorable night other than when we took the drop ceiling down.'cause it used to be, this is the 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 was supposed to be fireproof, but it obviously dozen and there were wires crossing everywhere. And so I would come in every night with this guy Gary, who used to help me trying to figure out what the wires are. They live. There was just this wire hanging. I figured, oh, this must be a, this must be a dead wire. It's not. The hotel grabbed it, got zapped, got thrown across the bar, Gary, that's why they have electricians. Just, you know, Gary looked down at me, go's a very important job. Are we done for the evening? And I'm like, no, we gotta keep going. But that, yeah, when, when cigarette smoking stopped, it never ever affected us. That's awesome. That's good for you. Oh, and what's odd is you're probably the last bar in New Brunswick that still sells cigarettes behind the bar. Yeah. And they're not cheap. Lemme, I, you know, that's an expensive habit. You know, we, what do you charge for a pack of cigarettes?$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 not about making the money, it's just like about keeping the people here. Yep. So can I smoke a cigar? And you're smoking a lounge out there? Something? Oh yeah. Oh yeah, sure. The smoking patio is, is, you know, is still out there. Well, so let me ask you a question about the, about the current clientele. So we've talked about it being an old man bar, a lesbian bar, biker bar, a hippie bar, cool Collo student bar. What is it now like? Who comes here now? If Mark and I walked in after work on a, on a Wednesday night at 10 o'clock or at six o'clock in 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 of Colors, professors, professors with their students who are over 21 that sit here and, and do discussions as part of a part of their 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 there four years at the last minute. Hey Rob, it has been great. I know we know each other really well, and, and I know You're podcast listening. Yes, I am. Um, if you would like a chance to win an ALE in witch t-shirt. You should email us at the guys@restaurantguyspodcast.com and, uh, and we'll pick a name out 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. And if you are, you can come visit R one Lewis and Hamilton here in New Brunswick on the Allen Witch Pub. Uh, it's been a great time, Rob. Thanks. I, I, I appreciate it. Thank you We'll be back in just a moment and you can always find out more about us@restaurantguyspodcast.com. Hi everybody. Welcome back. It is Mark. I have to tell you, I am as comfortable in this bar today as I was 30, 40 years ago. Yeah, that's'cause one o'clock in the afternoon, brother. Yeah. And I had to get this. That's, that's true too. So, so this bar has a, has a lot of fond memories. But I do want to harken back to something Rob said earlier. Do you remember at the frog of the peach when we had the cigarette drawer? There was a drawer with packs of, that's what it was for. It was so people wouldn't go someplace else. Right. You sold cigarettes by bar? We sold cigarettes. Everyone sold cigarettes by the bar and it was, it was in a drawer and we, and we sold a pack of cigarettes and occasionally we'd have even the open pack and somebody like. Can I get one of the, from the open pack? Oh yeah. The singles. Yeah, the singles. The singles illegal to sell the singles. Well, we didn't sell'em, we just give'em away, but they're, they're, occasionally it'd be open pack for somebody who just wanted a cigarette. Two 50. By the way, we bought the packs cost when we first started. 2050 cents. That's a long, that's a long time ago. Uh, so I, we can't leave this, the ail and witch party without talking about one of the first times I brought Jennifer here, my, my wife, who's also the producer of the show. Yeah. So what's amazing is she became your wife after you brought her here. So I'm bringing beers to the table, and I hand a beer to Jennifer. It just slips out of my hand and spills all over her. Now we're dating weeks. I mean, it's not, it's not very long 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 you another beer. Well, that's, and I know Jennifer, and that I'm sure that both of your priorities were in the same place. Except I went and I got her another beer. Yeah. And I brought it over to her again. And I spilled it all over her, the second one all over her. How have I never heard this story? That's amazing. it was true love from that moment on. Dude, I, I have to say thank heaven for beautiful women with poor judgment to men. That woman married me. Yeah. I spilled two entire pints of beer on her at the Ale in Witch in 19 88, 89, and she, and she's still married to me today, was Moonlight Serenade playing in the two class at the time. Oh Lord, I, I miss those days. Listen, I hope you guys have enjoyed this, uh, walk down memory lane with the restaurant guys. I'm Francis Shot. And I'm Mark Pascal. We're the restaurant guys. You can always find out more about us@restaurantguyspodcast.com.