Heat Waves Getting You Down?
Chill Out With an Ice-cold Drink at Pete’s Tavern!

Thanks Talara for sharing your story!

 

I was born a couple blocks away from Pete’s on 17th & 3rd (my mom didn’t make it to the hospital) back in the last year of the Third Avenue El. 1954 - a different neighborhood, in a different era, but the same Pete’s Tavern. 

My siblings and I all went to Mr. Burpee’s Stuyvesant Private/Gramercy Park school at 72 1/2 Irving. Pete’s Tavern was a landmark on the way to school, and a place to go on very special occasions. Family stories said my grandmother had also frequented Pete’s back at the turn of the last century (1900).

Years later (1971!) my mom moved next door to Pete’s, at 70 Irving. Pete’s became a regular stop for the family, including grand children and then great grandchildren, not just for special days, but to make a day special.

Then in 2007, I moved in with my now wheelchair-bound mother, to help care for her. Pete’s became a weekly event as I rolled my mom throughout the city we both loved.
In 2009 she got sick with the flu, and in retrospect, seemed to know she was fading. She revived and announced she wanted brunch at Pete’s.

She spent probably 1/2 hour deciding what would be her final meal, with a wonderfully doting waiter and restaurant manager. With such fancy clientele, we were mere “locals”, but treated so well.

She died the next day at home. That week as I passed Pete’s, the manager and wait staff all offered their heartfelt condolences.

In a world and city like ours, where we can be so crowded together and yet so alone, it is a joy and comfort that such a famous landmark establishment can still be a place where one can feel at home, with great service, great food and great people.
Thanks Pete’s, for generations of joy.