Just days before the coronavirus upended lives across the world, an entirely separate occurrence irreversibly changed the lives of residents in a small New Jersey town.
Mrs. Riley’s Publik House, the second oldest business in High Bridge and the longest continuing operation on Main Street, was damaged in a March 4 fire that forced the restaurant and bar to close just prior to the pandemic.
“We had the fire, then COVID came. And everyone said, ‘Oh, how lucky you are that you had a fire right before COVID,’” John Hickson, co-owner of the establishment, said. “But how is it lucky that I can sell nothing? Not a cheeseburger, not a french fry ... We had to borrow from 401Ks. We were paying full freight on our taxes, full freight on the mortgage, full freight on the water — everything.”
Hickson owns Mrs. Riley’s with his wife, Denise. He said a GoFundMe effort that raised over $10,000 for the restaurant in the wake of the fire “saved our lives” over the course of 2020, as it took “one year and a day” to receive a settlement from his insurance company to pay off the debt they had accumulated.
Even after the insurance kicked in, Hickson did not have enough money to rebuild the restaurant. So, he contacted a developer to arrange for it to be torn down.
Then, on the very day he was scheduled to sign a contract for the place to “go under the wrecking ball,” he was approached by Laura Rodriguez-Chavez and Oscar Perez.
“This has been something I’ve been looking forward to doing for some time — running a bar,” Rodriguez-Chavez said. ”I was an event coordinator, so I was considering what I was going to do with that. COVID had really taken a huge damper on it, and I was considering repositioning everything and closing up shop. So I thought, ‘Maybe there’s a space available.’”
Under the new management team of Rodriguez-Chavez and Perez, Mrs. Riley’s celebrated its grand reopening as the Forge Tavern on Saturday.
Reconstruction began in March of this year, but not been fully completed yet. The bar is temporarily reopening without food because the kitchen is not yet operational, Hickson explained.
“Apparently an electric battery from a drill started this fire ... and it burned the stockroom and kitchen very badly,” Hickson said. “But as far as the dining area and the bar area, everything in there was just smoke damage — to the air conditioning and TVs and walls.
“Everybody’s tight on money. So we said, ‘Let’s get it open ... and start a revenue stream so that we can continue on and further the renovations of the kitchen,’” he explained.
Since March, the establishment has been repainted, its floors refinished, and its bathrooms redecorated. Perez said the dining room has also been converted into a game room to make the place a bit “livelier” in the wake of the fire, while underscoring that the essence of the bar remains the same.
“It was just polishing up this hidden gem. We didn’t make any structural changes,” he said. “We just brightened it up and updated the things that needed to be updated.”
Hickson added that the bar also now features an “extraordinary, top-shelf” cocktail menu.
“There’s going to be premier cocktails and classic cocktails with a little bit of a spin,” Rodriguez-Chavez explained. “People at home have been drinking, perfecting their margaritas — so coming out and having something different is really going to be amazing for patrons.”
The team decided to rename the establishment to pay tribute to the borough’s history, which Perez and Rodriguez-Chavez said they “fell in love with” upon moving to High Bridge from Jersey City in February.
“With the Union Forge and the ties to the Revolution — we basically made it a motif in the place and just kept everything very vintage and old style on top of changing the name,” Perez said.
“We have a little lounge area in front so you can sit on the couch, and there’s a few chairs ... I think the whole idea is things are very recognizant of Forge Tavern, that era,” Rodriguez-Chavez added. “And what the town is really all about — the Union Forge and what Taylor Wharton brought to this town, and Custom Alloy is currently (bringing).”
Hickson, who was diagnosed with stage four prostate cancer approximately 10 years ago, expressed his appreciation for the new managers’ ideas for revamping the place by joking that he’s “fat, tired, and old.
“I think my old man bar thing needed a refreshing disposition, which I certainly don’t have ... So they’re now the business management company,” he said. “I’m now just the owner who sits at home and, I don’t know, practices guitar and throws tomatoes.”
Rodriguez-Chavez admitted that seeing the destroyed establishment was initially “devastating,” and spurred mixed emotions regarding her own involvement in its rebirth.
“Seeing John and Denise and even getting excited about purchasing something like this when they’ve lost so much — it was heartbreaking,” she said. “But I think at the end of the day, we saw this building and saw so much potential. And even without any of the experience we both have, it was a no-brainer.
“Seeing the community, seeing the people we’ve seen and met already — there was no way we weren’t going to help get this,” she added.
Both Perez and Rodriguez-Chavez have prior experience as bartenders, but credited their determination to make their mark in the restaurant industry to their restlessness during the pandemic.
“We both do have the experience, but COVID just changed our whole mentality on everything,” Perez said. “Just being so corporate and working from home, and moving out to High Bridge and falling in love with the town — we just kind of went out on a limb and are really changing our whole lifestyle and everything.”
Despite he and Rodriguez-Chavez’s confidence in the establishment’s future success, John and Denise are remaining involved as owners for the foreseeable future to help the new managers get acquainted with the business.
“We have an agreement that I would stay on and sort of train them to take over the business for a couple of years, and then when that’s done we’ll discuss the sale,” Hickson explained. “But I’ve spent 27 years here, 365 days a year. That’s a lot of work. So I’m hopeful that this partnership bears fruit of getting rid of me.”
Hickson expressed his excitement for future patrons to revel in a more “welcoming, liberated, inclusive” atmosphere than what was previously offered by the bar.
“It really is for the entire community, and we really want to welcome everyone here and make it that public place where people want to meet and greet and get together and have a social event,” he said.
However, on this one point Rodriguez-Chavez actually diverged from her mentor’s perspective.
“I want everybody to feel just as comfortable as they did when I went to Mrs. Riley’s Publik House,” she said. “We want people to feel at home here, because that’s how they’ve always felt.”
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