Edition: U.S. / Global

A Bar Is a Bar, but a Tavern, That's History

Published: December 15, 2002

THERE are many places to have a beer in the state, and then there are taverns.

In Connecticut, there is a legal distinction between a bar and a tavern. Bars can serve whatever you're having, including hard liquor. Taverns, once known as public houses back when residents were still British subjects are places that can serve only beer, wine, cider, and food if they choose. The tavern license is one that few establishments want because the limits keep sales and profits down. As a result, in a state where the tavern was once a neighborhood fixture, it is now an endangered species. By some counts, there are only about 10 left.

''I was aware there were fewer and fewer places like this, and one by one, they're gone,'' said Peter Detmold, owner of the Dutch Tavern in downtown New London. ''They've either been reclaimed by development, gone out of business or just have gone through some kind of image change where they're no longer a classic neighborhood bar.''

For many New Englanders the word tavern evokes images of dark Colonial watering holes in clapboard houses, but taverns in post-Prohibition Connecticut actually bear little resemblance to those ancestors. When Prohibition was repealed in 1933 state lawmakers created a license to serve beer and cider -- the tavern license -- and in the tavern heyday of the 1940's and 50's there were as many as 600 or 700 throughout the state.

Now, a tavern license, which costs $240 a year (a full bar permit is $1,750), has become a relic.

''Taverns fell out of favor in the late 1970's,'' said Jerry Langlais, an administrator with the state's Division of Liquor Control. ''You used to see them fall by the wayside left and right back then. It was very popular at one time, particularly in blue-collar areas.''

There are only 24 tavern licenses in the state, and only 13 can strictly be considered taverns, while only 10 of those have the post-Prohibition history that characterizes the true, working-class Connecticut tavern. The remaining places are pizza restaurants or pool halls that serve beer and have the licenses as a matter of convenience.

Taverns, after Prohibition, became basic drinking establishments, unadorned neighborhood bars where locals stopped after work for conversation and beer. They were not -- and are not -- places for cocktails or the subtleties of single malt scotch. They are places that have accumulated the patina of smoke, spilled beer and the histories of the people who drank there.

So a tavern in Connecticut might be called a tavern, but while it has the word in its name, it isn't necessarily a tavern, according to state law. The Silvermine Tavern in Norwalk, for example, and the Tavern on Main in Westport are actually not taverns by strict definition. The true tavern is a working person's bar, a place without the gentrified Colonial-era artifacts that the world tavern evokes.

Ask any tavern regular and they will say there is something beyond a state statute that distinguishes their local tavern from a modern-day bar.

''This place didn't come from a kit,'' said Mr. Detmold of the Dutch Tavern.. ''It comes from decades of use.''

In the 1940's and 1950's, state liquor officials said, Bridgeport had more taverns than any city in the state. That distinction now belongs to Torrington, which has four taverns: Chesty's, the Northside, Rae's Towne Tavern and Joe D's, the state's oldest tavern. (Inside Joe D's, a plaque, given to the tavern in 1994 by the General Assembly, congratulates the place for being in business since 1934.)

On a recent Sunday, a woman in her early 80's tended the bar at Joe D's, pouring 70-cent draft beers for a few men at the counter. ''I come up here for the congeniality,'' said Robert Alvarez, 81, a retiree of the Waterbury Buckle Company who lives 20 minutes away in Plymouth and comes to Joe D's nearly every day. ''I come for all these people.''

Once the province of men, taverns are now friendlier to women. Across Torrington, Rae's Towne Tavern, which was once a garage, is one of five taverns in Connecticut with women owners. ''There never used to be a lot of women, but we cleaned it up a lot and guys aren't afraid to being their wives and girlfriends anymore,'' said RaeAnne Martin, the owner.

In the northwest corner, the state's most remote tavern is the Sharon Valley Tavern, which sits in the affluent, rolling countryside of the town. In a red gingerbread house on a quiet road, the tavern has only six bar stools and is the type of place where a stranger is noticed, though not unwelcome. ''This is a workingman's bar in a high-priced town,'' said Joseph Kain Jr., whose family has owned the tavern since 1936. ''You have to take care of the working men who drink here. These working guys can't afford to live here anymore.''

The history of Connecticut's post-Prohibition taverns is sketchy, largely because the humble neighborhood tavern may not seem a likely choice for historical inquiry. Their histories are passed down through casual conversation, becoming transmuted over time.