The Worst 80th Birthday Party of All Time
Disaster Strikes at the City Tavern
As I mentioned in a previous piece, when I moved to Philly in 2001, I had little money and few prospects. After a few months, it was clear that the job waiting tables at Sfizzio wasn’t going to pay the bills, and I needed to move on. In those days, the place you looked for jobs was in the Philly Weekly and the City Paper. And one job listing kept coming up, for a serving job at the City Tavern, which was virtually spitting distance away from Sfizzio. Located on the corner of 2nd and Walnut, I was under the impression that this historical site had been there since the 1700s. It had not; it was a reconstruction, built in the 1970s for the Bicentennial Celebration. The original had caught on fire in 1834 and was razed in 1854. The City Tavern was a shlocky hot dog joint for tourists into the 1980s, then closed. In 1994, proprietor Walter Staib, originally of Germany, re-opened it on the 4th of July.
Staib was quite a bit more ambitious than the previous tenants. He wanted to serve foods that were popular in the 18th century, though updated for 20th century palates (most folks in the modern world would rather have chunks of beef in their pepper pot soup than beef tripe.) Staib was very passionate about the history of food. He would later host a show called A Taste of History on PBS. Some of the backstories of the food were pretty cool…the George Washington Porter was made by Yards and (at the time) carried exclusively by the City Tavern, and was based on Washington’s original recipe. Others were just shit that we made up. Nobody knows whether or not medallions of venison were one of John Adams favorites, but why not tell the couple from Des Moines that to spice up the experience?
One item we carried on the menu a Tavern Lobster Pot Pie. It was listed at Market Price, but it was always $38.50. I remember one time I had a French family of four order it without asking for the price. When they got the menu, the dad was furious. “HOW COULD YOU NOT TELL ME THIS WAS $38.50 EACH???” he screamed in broken English.Uh, well, because you didn’t ask. Needless to say, I didn’t get a tip on that one.
But what made it somewhat amusing was that it was the most expensive things on the menu, and in colonial times, lobster was about the cheapest food you could find. The Delaware River was swarming with them. It’s what typically got served to prisoners.
According to a Texas A&M professor named Glenn Jones, “It was considered a trash fish — it was not something you’d want to be seen eating. In colonial America servants negotiated agreements that they would not be forced to eat lobster more than twice a week.”
As I have mentioned previously, I was not a particularly adept server, but I was…fine. I was also not crazy about dressing in a colonial outfit to serve food, with knickers, knee socks, and a vest. There are no photos of me in that outfit that I’m aware of (which is not by accident), but the pic below will give you an idea of how we looked.
There was a hierarchy of servers. Our best two were immigrants. Mike A was from Egypt and Harris was from Jamaica. Those guys were brilliant salesmen. Their Tavern Lobster Pot Pie sales were through the roof, whereas mine were typically from angry French dads who made a mistake while ordering. And so, while they held court in the rooms where they sent the corporate accounts (The Cincinnati Room and the Banquet Room), I was typically sent to the three rooms that were the minor leagues of the enormous establishment. They were in the basement, where during the week they sent people who weren’t going to spend much money. Don’t get me wrong, I still made more than the $150 a week I was pulling from Sfizzio, but dressing up like a Revolutionary War soldier and spending hours in a restaurant’s basement selling various pot pies to Iowans wasn’t exactly a major move up the career ladder.
The following is not a story I wouldn’t tell if they were still open, but since they closed in 2020, I think it’s fine. One Saturday night, even though I was stuck in the basement, I found myself in a good mood. A woman was celebrating her 80th birthday, and her entire family would be there. It was about 15 people in all, enough to take over almost the whole room. And while I was typically a somewhat indifferent server, I thought, “This is her 80th, let’s make it special.” So I turned on the charm that night. I was flirting with the birthday girl, joking with the grandkids, upselling pot pies, refilling water without being asked. It was an early glimpse at the Johnny Goodtimes persona..I was taking control of that room. The food came out quickly, there was laughter, joy, perhaps even a little mirth. Yes, the tip I was going to get out of this one was gonna be one for the ages.
They wrapped up their meals, and I went to the back to grab Grandma a slice of cheesecake with a candle on top. When I returned we were all going to sing “Happy Birthday” in our loudest voices. That’s what made the words that I heard when I walked back through the door with the slice of cheesecake adorned with a lit candle so shocking.
“KILL IT!” someone yelled. Others at the table were screaming, some were crying. A stunned but puzzled look came across my face as I tried to make sense in the startling shift in mood. Then I saw what they were referring to. It was a cockroach, the largest one I had ever seen, running directly towards me, about the size of an iphone. Instinctively, I stomped on it. It sounded like a dump truck being dropped from the Empire State Building, and breaking through the ice on a frozen creek. CRACK! Screaming ensued. Yelling. One of the grandkids blurted out, “That cockroach fell out of the light fixture onto grandma’s head!”
My God! What to do? I was holding a slice of cheesecake with a lit candle on top of it. To my credit I was able to ascertain that NOW was not the time for singing “Happy Birthday”. I ran into the back, and then up the back stairs, sweat pouring from my face, tears welling in my eyes, looking for a manager. I found the same one, John, who had handled the angry French dad.
“Dude, what’s wrong?”
“The woman, she had her 80th birthday…and a cockroach landed on her head!”
“Jesus Christ!” We both ran to the basement. By now, it was clear that there would be no singing. No cheesecake with a candle on top. Grandmom was being consoled by her two daughters. The kids were in tears. Her son he was clearly disappointed. They received their bill, they tipped me 15% (it would have been much higher without the “incident”, but I was in no position to complain), and they quietly filed out of the room.
My hope is that they had another party a year later for her 81st, and had a blast. And I hope those kids can laugh about it now that they’re adults and weren’t permanently traumatized by it. As for me, it wasn’t a total loss. I was able to eat a slice of cheesecake that night, on the house.