New owner takes over iconic Somers Point establishment
By William Kelly
The sale of the venerable Anchorage Tavern in Somers Point certainly made news, but the media wave quickly died and now it’s back to normal, and everyone’s happy about that.
Tourists who return this summer won’t know the difference — that Don Mahoney isn’t in the kitchen or even in the house running the place anymore, and everything seems the same: same menu, same bartenders, same servers, as the change in ownership went pretty smoothly compared to previous tumultuous and tense turnovers.
They say, “It’s the end of an era, and the beginning of a new one,” and that’s true enough, with the Anchorage seeing many eras come and go in its long history as Somers Point’s oldest, continuously operated business. If walls could talk, the Anchorage would scream.
Most eras come and go with definitive dates, usually when the sale and transactions take place with the transfer of the title.
Built for Sportsmen
Built in the 1880s as a hotel and restaurant, we know from old newspaper advertisements that it catered primarily to bird hunters and fishermen, and was originally called the Trenton Hotel, much like the Atlantic City hotels were called The Pittsburgh and Baltimore to attract seasonal tourists from those areas who visited the shore by train and trolley.
With a grand vista view of Great Egg Harbor, the bay got its name from the large number of bird nests that lined the shores as seen by early Dutch explorers.
In August 1905 a newspaper advertisement announced that proprietor Daniel Reagan had “cheerful rooms” available for $8 and $10 a week, with fishing, boating and bathing being the main attractions.
A History of Many Owners
For a while the Anchorage was owned by local Judge Larry Brannigan, known as “the law east of the Patcong Creek.”
Hannah Somers, a descendent of the town’s founding family, was a proprietor for a number of years, and her longtime bartender Joe Coyle kept a parrot named Teddy that picked up an atrocious vocabulary from the regulars at the bar.
Brannigan sold the place to Charles Collins who was running it when Rev. John F. Sweeney, pastor of St. Augustine’s Church in Ocean City, took the ferry over to Somers Point, walked down Bay Avenue and said the first public Catholic Mass in the Anchorage ballroom.
The Anchorage wasn’t always a saintly haven however, as Prohibition rum runners found Great Egg Harbor a friendly port during those years. After Prohibition the Anchorage was awarded the fifth city liquor license, No. C-5.
In 1938 Collins sold the Anchorage to Lucille Cornaglia Thompson, who passed it on to her brother Andrew Cornaglia, Sr., and his wife in 1945. They gave the kitchen a distinct Italian flavor, specializing in pasta and wine and catering mainly to their South Philly neighbors who visited the Jersey Shore in the summers. That era lasted more than a decade, until the spring of 1965, when Andrew Sr. passed away and his son Andrew took over at the age of 20, not yet old enough to drink.
Getting Lucky
“When my father passed away, I didn’t know vodka from gin,” Andrew said. “If it wasn’t for my mother, I would not have been able to sustain the first couple of years.” Since then Cornaglia has operated five bars and restaurants, including the Anchorage. But he says it was all luck, and the biggest things that happened to him were never planned.
“The key things that happened to me in my life,” Andrew said, “were basically working hard, lucking out, and knowing my brother-in-law Joseph Trecheck, who ran the Anchorage for many years. But all of the key things happened by accident. When it’s your turn, it’s your turn. That’s what the fates are doing. You can make all the wrong moves, and they turn out right.”
Cornaglia maintains that just forgetting to lock the front door one day was the acorn that made the Anchorage work. Because the older folks had not been patronizing the establishment since his father passed away, business was down going into the second season when a surprising thing happened.
“I was mopping up on a Good Friday when we were supposed to be closed, but I forgot to lock the door, and these guys walked in — bartenders in this area. They just sent me people after that, and the Anchorage just took off when the young people started to drift in.”
In 1966, the Anchorage began serving seven beers for a dollar, a concept Cornaglia appropriated from another bar, but it was an idea the Anchorage branded, making 7 for $1 a famous icon. Anchorage t-shirts with “7 for $1” were ordered, stylishly different each week, and are now collector’s items, though you can still buy a new one at the hostess station.
A Tradition is Shattered
The 7 for $1 beers continued until 1980 when their cost became prohibitive. But it wasn’t the cost of the beer (either Piel’s, Black Label or Ortliebs), it was the cost of the glasses, which were routinely broken or taken home as souvenirs. In 1966 the 6 ounce pilsner glasses cost 4 cents each, with the Anchorage going through an average of 7,200 glasses a season. By 1980, the same glass cost 34 cents.
The bartenders learned to pour and carry seven beers at a time, so watching them work was considered the best entertainment in town. “No one ordered just seven for one,” explained Cornaglia. “You would get your orders for seventy, a hundred. There would always be a bar full of beer, a backup of people who wanted beer, and two people collecting empty glasses at all times. It was a great scavenger hunt.”
Saturday of Labor Day weekend, 1970, was the best day ever when they went through 44 half-kegs, which amounted to 17,556 beers.
The Bay Avenue Circuit
In its prime, the Anchorage was just one stop on the Bay Avenue circuit that also included Tony Mart’s and Bay Shores, where the bands rotated on two stages, offering continuous live music. But there was a cover charge at those places, and the drinks were more expensive, so the Anchorage became a quick pitstop before and after people went to the band bars. And many of the bartenders and musicians from those places lived in the rooms upstairs at the Anchorage.
“I could tell by the influx of people when they changed the bands at Tony Mart’s,” Cornaglia recalls.
By the mid-1980s Andrew had sold his other establishments and the 7 for $1 era was over, but he still had the Anchorage and it still had its youthful summer crowd and a faithful year-round constituency as he kept the place open all winter.
Then one day in 1993 someone noticed men were taking a survey of the premises, and Bill Morris came in and announced that he had purchased the Anchorage from George Roberts while vacationing in Florida.
Morris had owned and sold a North New Jersey trucking company and wanted to invest in Somers Point. He ran into former mayor and Realtor George Roberts in Florida, and gave him a sizable, six-figure down payment for the purchase of the Anchorage, but Roberts never told Andrew Cornaglia.
The dispute went to court but the property was sold and the deal had to go through, even though Roberts kept the deposit and did time for the scam that eventually brought other people out of the woodwork to complain about Roberts’ business practices.
The last day at the old Anchorage was unlike any other, as people came in from all over to have a last drink for the last call. Billy Boyd, a former Anchorage bartender who once lived upstairs, and owned the Parrot Lounge in Fort Lauderdale, came up for the last hurrah, as did many others like him.
Anchorage Remodel
New owner Bill Morris took on a partner, construction contractor Dave Tyson, who remodeled the Anchorage, putting in the rectangle bar, reopening the ballroom as a dining room, fixing up the porch and restrooms and leasing the kitchen to chef Tyson Merryman. When Merryman moved on to buy and run the equally historic Tuckahoe Inn, Don Mahoney realized his dream by taking over the Anchorage kitchen.
A local who began cooking at age 12, Mahoney first learned the trade at Daniel Antolini’s Daniel’s Italian restaurant on Shore Road, one of the few first-class establishments in town. Knowing he belonged in the kitchen, Mahoney attended the Culinary Institute of America, then came back to work around town, but he really wanted the Anchorage kitchen and finally had it.
Mahoney upgraded the menu to his style. Eventually Mahoney made an offer to buy the Anchorage, one that was accepted. Now, not only did Don Mahoney run the kitchen, he owned the Anchorage and put his stamp on it.
The Mahoney era, which lasted over two decades, was almost wiped out by a catastrophic event.
The Anchorage Fire
Everything was running smoothly and on routine until early in the morning of Sept. 11, 2006 when a janitor saw smoke and called the fire department at 5 o’clock in the morning. The four-alarm fire began in the ceiling fan of the south side men’s room, but spread quickly behind the wood clapboards.
Don Mahoney and his insurance man were on the scene before the fire was brought under control, and the firemen, all Anchorage patrons, put their hearts and souls into putting out that fire.
The insurance man said the Anchorage was covered in full, and the fire inspector said that he could either condemn the building, have it razed and Mahoney could retire to Florida and live comfortably on the insurance, or he could rebuild and restore; it was Mahoney’s call. A Lloyd’s of London insurance man agreed, the ship could sink or sail and they would pay the freight.
It didn’t take long for Mahoney to take his 40 employees into consideration. He decided to rebuild.
Then came the really bad news. The fire inspector said that a closer look showed the foundation of the building was shot, and had to be condemned, but the insurance man said the foundation was not covered by the fire insurance.
Luckily there was a local contractor right there listening in who spoke up, telling Mahoney that he could pump concrete into the foundation without moving the building and would do it for a reasonable price, though Mahoney would have to pay for it out of his own pocket, which he agreed to do.
The new foundation and restoration of the fire damage took four months and the insurance paid for profits lost, and Mahoney made up the difference between his employees’ unemployment and what they made working. Four months later the Anchorage was up and running with things back to normal.
Don Mahoney was named Somers Point’s Man of the Year for making the decision to save the Anchorage, one of the area’s landmark institutions.
It Wasn’t Even for Sale
Now, two decades into the Mahoney stewardship era, with things running smoothly, he was going through his daily routine when along comes Michael Fitzgerald, who wanted to buy the place even though it isn’t listed for sale.
Fitzgerald is a local guy, originally from Lindenwold, who moved to Somers Point some years ago. He wanted to invest in the town so he purchased the old Jolly Roger liquor license when they closed to make way for the elimination of the Somers Point Circle. Then he bought Dolfin Dock with the idea of building a restaurant where he could put his liquor license.
But that plan fell through when he was denied city permits for lack of parking. Fitzgerald wasn’t going to be denied his goal of owning a bar and restaurant, so he offered Don Mahoney a good price for the Anchorage, even though it wasn’t listed for sale.
Since Fitzgerald had no background in owning or running a bar-restaurant, other than a summer stint at Maynard’s in Margate, Mahoney couldn’t see it happening. He wasn’t about to take everything he built up over the years and just take the money and run.
But Fitzgerald made the deal happen when he promised to keep on all the employees, menu and style, and that’s what he did. So after George Roberts’ swindle and the Morris Family fallout, the transaction went down pretty smooth; a quiet deal.
Don Mahoney’s last day on the job, Saturday, March 18, the day after St. Patrick’s Day, was pretty normal, with Mahoney going about his routine, but at the end of the day he announced that the Anchorage would be closed for a week and he was going to retire.
The transfer of the liquor license, even though Fitzgerald had been investigated before and been through the process, was held up at the state level. But then Somers Point City Council held a special meeting the following Thursday, approved the liquor license transfer and the next day they had a quiet reopening for family and friends before opening to the general public on Saturday, when things seemed to be back to normal.
And now Michael P. Fitzgerald is the new owner of the Anchorage. Not a chef in the kitchen; he will leave that Don Mahoney’s protégé Dave and his cooks. Fitzgerald is more of a floor worker, greeting new and old patrons around the bar and at the tables.
One of the first things Fitzgerald said as the new owner was, “The overwhelming support and good wishes have been amazing. It’s a great testament to this community and the great town of Somers Point.”
With two liquor licenses, a bayside marina, and the oldest and most prestigious business establishment in town, Fitzgerald is now a major player in a small town.
Things are back to normal, and a new era has begun, but there’s no telling where it will go.
William Kelly is the author of “300 Years at the Point — A History of Somers Point, NJ,” and “Birth of the Birdie — a History of Golf at Atlantic City Country Club.”
