A Taste of Walk Street Tavern

A bartender is always told stories by the bar's patrons. For Bellerose resident John Kouri, his minor in psychology definitely helps when hearing those stories on his two-shift a week bartending gig at .

Kouri has worked at Walk Street Tavern for 14 months and said of the restaurant/bar, “I love it here; it has that down-homey essence.”

The building of Walk Street Tavern, previously known as Henry’s Inn, dates back to the 1880s before Garden City resident and owner Jimmy Tubbs and his Culinary Institute partner, Robert Kloepfer, took over the place in June 2008.

Tubbs, who also works in real estate, was first a customer at good friend Kloepfer’s Walk Street Tavern in Garden City and before they knew it they became instant business partners.

“The purchase of the property…became an attractive purchase for us and the irony of ironies is that Robert [Kloepfer], when he was a teenager, worked here when it was Henry’s Inn in the kitchen for five years before he went to the Culinary Institute,” Tubbs said.

Still located in the same spot for centuries despite the name changes, the structure of the building remains the same, but the whole interior has been remodeled.

“We put in a brand new bar, the ceilings were changed, the walls were all reconditioned and the whole exterior of the building was done,” Tubbs said. “A lot of things behind the walls that you wouldn’t see were also fixed and repaired, but the actual structure is exactly the same.”

The Tavern includes bar seating, tables and TVs as well as two dining or party rooms in the back plus an outdoor dining  area accompanied by an outdoor bar and barbeque for the warmer weather.

“We do private parties out there and regular dinners and lunches and last summer we actually did a wedding out there,” Tubbs said. “It’s quite an asset because there are not many places that have an outdoor dining area…and other than a few places on the water in Nassau County there are very few places; certainty nobody has one that is the size of [ours].”

Still known for their famous burgers as Henry’s Inn was, the Tavern offers a varied, moderately-priced menu made up of freshly-made food.

“You don’t expect to come into a tavern atmosphere and get mussels that people rave about or fresh crab cakes,” Tubbs said. “Things like that are just not normal for this type of a place. We have a diverse menu that people find—from top to bottom—pretty darn good.”

Other than having about six live outdoor concerts a year, the Tavern offers live music from , singles or duos every Friday and Saturday night.

“A lot of the bands find us; it’s a very popular place to play,” Tubbs said. “The popularity here on Friday night is pretty amazing…it’s probably two or three or four bands a month that come to me and drops off CDs or send me their Facebook or Myspace link trying to break into the lineup.”

Saturday nights are much more diverse where Friday nights includes a lot of cover bands. Other than bartending, Kouri’s band, The Tremors, play anything from Frank Sinatra to Coldplay once a month.

“We’re very versatile; we’re a pretty tight band,” Kouri said. “It’s good to play around here because I think that people really love live music and with the economic downturn, I don’t think people are going out and making a big night of it in Manhattan as much as they used to.”

Once labeled as an “older man’s bar” as Tubbs put it, the Tavern now accumulates a range of people who are between 20-something and 60-something. 

“On Friday nights we seem to draw plus 30,” Tubbs said. “The younger 20-year-olds from the neighborhood also come in. They’re not excluded by any stretch—and they enjoy the live music too because your really can’t get the quality of music around here too often; there are a few other places that have tried, but don’t seem to have as much success as we do.”

Speaking of older men, bar regular Steve Fleming from Valley Stream started coming to this location when it was Henry’s Inn in 1976.

“They fixed [this place] up nice and I’m very friendly with a lot of the waitresses,” Fleming said. “We’ve socialized and gone to weddings together and everything; it’s a family place.”

Fleming also keeps promising himself (poking fun of his age) that he’ll “get out of his crib while watching Law and Order” to see Kouri sing with his band.

The majority of Walk Street Tavern’s business is at night and on weekends.

“Last year we had an increase in our private parties; our regular business was down slightly, but our private parties were way up,” Tubbs said. “Our weekend business is extremely very strong at this time of year and we’re waiting for the warmer weather to come in to get outside and kicked up.”

Tubbs hopes that when people come in to his place they feel comfortable and safe and that the Tavern is a great place for dinner, drinks, a baptism party, wedding party or birthday party.

“I don’t want to sound cliché, but it’s a family place,” Kouri said. “You walk in here and it’s not a meat-market, it’s not a stimulation thing, there are not crazy lights here, there are not electronic computers everywhere that I have to ring in drinks. There’s an old-fashioned essence to it that I like.”