By Scott Cronick
There was a time in my life when my home away from home was the Pic-A-Lilli Pub.
It was the diviest of dive bars in Atlantic City – or anywhere for that matter.
It was the kind of place where you pretended to ignore the broken bar stools, the caving popcorn ceiling, the cracked floor tiles, the filthy walls, the broken pinball machine, the dodgy people who frequented it and the most horrific bathroom one could ever encounter.
But, damn, those wings were good! The beers were cheap. The jukebox rocked like it was a time machine from the ’70s and ’80s. And they were open late – real late … sometimes 24 hours.
The Pic was the perfect nightcap when the partying got hard and you needed a good, greasy meal to soak up the suds and make sure you even felt worse the next day. And when my buddy The Kipster ran the Tennessee Avenue joint, there was no better place for me – and my fellow comrades in The Fat Boy Beach Club – to go whenever we had a craving for those sweet yet savory wings and a wooden bowl of cheese fries.
So, when the Pic closed its doors about two years ago, it was a sad day for anyone who ever frequented the joint. But, let’s be honest: The Pic hasn’t been The Pic since The Kipster parted ways there more than five years ago. The food went downhill, and if it was possible, so did the facilities and the clientele. It wasn’t The Pic I fell in love with when I came to the shore 30 years ago.
When it was announced a group of entrepreneurs were going to take over The Pic, there were rumors it was going to be everything from a pizza joint to a Greek restaurant.
None of them were true.
The King’s Pub debuted a couple months ago, and I am happy to say it is exactly everything – if not more – than I could ever hope the former Pic-A-Lilli would be. (For the record, I still love to go The Pic in Shamong to get my wing fix.)
In fact, King’s Pub is not only a perfect addition to Tennessee Avenue and the increasingly fantastic, buzzworthy Orange Loop, but King’s Pub can easily fill the void in my heart that I once had for The Pic, and it will undoubtedly be the place where I hang when I am not at Tennessee Avenue Beer Hall, which I proudly serve as co-owner.
What is King’s Pub
So, what is King’s Pub? It’s basically a dive bar with fantastic food. On first look, you realize not a whole lot has changed structurally or even from a design and color standpoint, which still boasts reds and oranges and a classic wood bar.
But what you will immediately notice is that it’s first and foremost CLEAN. The place is spotless, including the kitchen where I refused to enter when it was The Pic because I knew I probably wouldn’t eat those fantastic wings because of its deplorable condition. The kitchen is so clean and meticulous – including the once disgusting walk-in refrigerator – that even Gordon Ramsay would wipe his white glove over the surfaces and find nothing to curse about.
The bathrooms, which once didn’t even have toilet seats – forcing women to squat over the bowl – have been completely remodeled and are welcoming to guests.
Every surface in the bar from the walls to the floors to the new wood ceilings have either been painted or entirely replaced. The air conditioning works again … and so does the heat. And much-needed extra refrigeration and storage was added outside.
In other words, King’s Pub still has the feel of a dive bar, but it doesn’t possess any of the negative elements of its former self.
So, what is the impetus of this major transformation?
Friendship, of course.
Hospitality Avengers Assemble
The only ways the former Pic was going to become something special again was if it got ripped down and replaced entirely with something new, or if a group of passionate restaurateurs got together and were determined make a sunken ship float again.
The latter happened when longtime friends Michael Ghabryal, Dmitrijs Ostrovskis and David Wong reunited.
All three hospitality workers met each other at Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa, where Ghabryal and Ostrovskis still work as servers at Angeline by Michael Symon.
Wong, who serves as executive sous chef at Resorts Casino Hotel, kept in touch with his former Borgata mates and ran into Ghabryal, who invited him to have lunch at Ghabryal’s other business, Don Maco’s Pizza & Grill, a tiny Boardwalk pizza stop between Tennessee Avenue and St. James Place.
“We kept in touch over the years, and when I went to visit Michael, we started talking, and I was giving him some menu advice and told him to take advantage of his prime real estate on the Boardwalk by adding some things like lobster roll or whatever,” said Wong, who left Borgata and has been happily working at Resorts since 2011. “Then he said, ‘There’s something I want to show you.’ And we walked over to the former Pic, and everyone was sweating their butts off because the air conditioning wasn’t working, and they were in there resurfacing and doing all of this work transforming the place. Michael and Dmitrijs already owned it, and they were just figuring out what it would become.”
After more conversations – and menu advice from Wong – Ghabryal and Ostrovskis invited the chef to join them as a consultant.
“I was like, ‘No way, man, I love my job at Resorts, and I’m not going anywhere,’” Wong said. “And they countered with, ‘You can do both. We are doing the same thing. We aren’t leaving our jobs either.’ So, with three people splitting responsibilities and everyone sticking to their day jobs, I was intrigued. As long as I was able to stay at Resorts and make that my priority, then I was in. And it’s been great so far.”
Since the invitation was accepted, the trio named it King’s Pub to brand the place as an upgraded pub experience fit for a king, opened its shiny new digs to the public late in 2023, and have made quite an impression locals and tourists thanks to Wong’s stellar food and an evolving beverage program spearheaded by Ghabryal and Ostrovskis.
“Every day I walked in there over the summer and into the fall, the transformation was ridiculous,” Wong said. “And that transformation and evolution continues every day. I handle the back of the house with my crew, and they handle the front of the house with their crew and making sure the place looks great. It’s been a tremendous learning experience that has been so rewarding.”
Food and drinks fit for a …
If anyone has had the pleasure of eating Wong’s food, you know you are in for something special.
King’s Pub gives Wong the ability to showcase his culinary ability on a more casual level than he normally does.
The small menu will eventually grow, but for its opening, Wong wanted to make sure he and his staff could execute everything brilliantly out of what is one of the smallest restaurant kitchens you will find in Atlantic City. There are four seafood dishes, two salads, a half dozen sandwiches, and wings and tenders, of course.
“We knew that we had to have great wings and tenders because we are in the location of one of the most famous wing places ever,” Wong said. “The menu is small, but we want to feel prideful about everything coming out of that kitchen. It’s better to have a small menu where everything is great as opposed to a big menu that’s crap.”
King’s Pub definitely delivers on that front. Not only do they offer Lilly sauce in homage to The Pic’s deliciously sweet yet savory masterpiece, but King’s Pub offers eight others.
Standouts include Green Goddess, usually known as a salad dressing with mayo, sour cream, chervil, chives, tarragon and lemon juice that has become super popular on social media; Mango Habanero, the spiciest of the bunch and my favorite that we tried thanks to its perfect balance of heat and sweet; Dragon Breath Buffalo, a more traditional wing sauce that doesn’t pack as much heat as its name suggests; and Apple Bourbon, Wong’s personal favorite that he hopes becomes King’s Pub signature sauce.
“I think the Apple Bourbon represents what we do here at King’s Pub, which is make everything from scratch in small batches so everything is perfect,” Wong said. “For wings, diversity in flavors is what it’s all about. We have a small menu, but we have nine sauces, so you can have a lot of different experiences with just our wings and tenders. But the Apple Bourbon will feature apples that we will source differently every month from regions where apples are in season, kind of like how Five Guys tells you where their potatoes are from. I came across this amazing apple that we use at Capriccio at Resorts called Mountain Rose out of Oregon. When you cut it, the inside looks like a deep red grapefruit. So, I am going to learn a lot about apples. And then we take a full bottle of bourbon – usually Maker’s Mark – and a whole gallon of apple cider and brown sugar and a little bit of soy and heat and garlic and reduce that for three hours. It takes that long to do it right, or else it burns, or it becomes bitter if you rush it. And we will only make small batches of it and make it every other day because I know it will be perfect every time if we make it like that. No shortcuts.”
Wong also doesn’t take any easy routes when it comes to his burgers and sandwiches.
The King’s Burger offers a custom beef blend patty topped with smoked brisket that cooks between three and four hours, and then tops it off with some frizzled onions on a Formica brioche roll. The brisket can be found alternatively as a BBQ Brisket sandwich with the frizzled onions, Colby cheddar and coleslaw. Even better is the Squire Burger, which features maple pepper bacon, cheddar and a homemade shallot marmalade that offers sweetness, tartness and all-around deliciousness.
The Crispy Chicken Sandwich rivals any in the city with its buttermilk ranch sauce, provolone cheese and bacon, with the Lilly buffalo sauce bringing a lot of flavor to the mix.
“We use self-rising flour, no egg, a little tempura batter and then put it back in the flour and drop it slowly in the fryer,” Wong said. “It’s similar to Popeye’s in a way because we mimic that tempura batter. That beautiful chicken breast comes out great because all of that moisture is trapped inside the flour and batter, and it cooks relatively quickly, which is nice.”
The two salads are a Caesar and a Steakhouse Wedge, and I can’t urge you enough to choose the latter. With iceberg lettuce, a homemade buttermilk blue cheese to die for, thick and crispy bacon, cherry tomatoes and crispy tobacco onions, it’s better than most casino steakhouse wedge salads that charge a third more.
Seafood plays a role at King’s Pub, particularly Wong’s crab cake – available as a basket with coleslaw and french fries or a sandwich with tartar aioli and Romaine lettuce, and in the summer, fresh Jersey tomato.
“It’s a mix of super lump and claw meat, because the claw meat is where the flavor comes from,” Wong said. “We use egg yolk, breadcrumbs, panko, lemon, Worcester and Tabasco, and we grill in on the la plancha. It’s simple, but people really like it.”
There’s also fried scallops and shrimp, but Wong suggests seafood lovers try the Ocean Catch special, especially when it’s the fritto misto featuring fried calamari, shrimp, broccoli rabe and cherry peppers.
“That’s just a taste of what I want to do seasonally in the kitchen when it comes to seafood,” Wong said. “That part of the menu will really evolve. I would definitely like to see us do some tapas with lighter, smaller bites in the future, too.”
As for the cocktails, beer and wine selection, Ghabryal and Ostrovskis have put together a very nice Scotch, bourbon and whiskey list, and they already have nearly a dozen tequilas, an impressive list that the duo will expand on dramatically in the future.
They also put together a very nice cocktail menu. The Paloma with Patron Silver Tequila, agave, Q Grapefruit Soda and fresh lime with a salt rim is possibly the best Paloma we ever had; the Strawberry Lemonade with ALB Vodka, strawberry lemonade and mint is a great seller; the King’s Pub Old Fashioned with Elijah Craig Small Batch Bourbon, Michter’s Single Barrel Rye, Demerara and bitters will please those looking or a stiff one; and the Revolver with Angel’s Envy Bourbon, Shanky’s Whip Coffee Liqueur and bitters is a great after-meal drink.
King’s Court?
Wong, Ghabryal and Ostrovskis seem particularly thrilled to not only take over, rebrand and rename a legendary location near the Boardwalk, but to take it over on a street that already has gained some attention thanks to Tennessee Avenue Beer Hall, Bar 32 Chocolate, Cuzzie’s Pizzeria and Rhythm & Spirits, in the Orange Loop that also features Cardinal, The Irish Pub, Anchor Rock Club and more.
“We absolutely want to be part of the community,” Wong said. “We want Tennessee Avenue to be the street where everyone comes after work, and every tourist finds us because of what we built together. We are already seeing people come to our place and then walk down to Tennessee Avenue Beer Hall, or they park at the Beer Hall and go there and then come see us. We want people to bar hop and have an appetizer here and a sandwich there and dessert over there. And we are seeing that in the middle of winter. It’s a good sign that people feel safe and want to explore what we have here. We are stretching the boardwalk experience all the way down Tennessee Avenue. We want everyone to come down to Tennessee Avenue to see what we have to offer. We are monopolizing the best side of Atlantic City.”
King’s Pub is located at 229 S. Tennessee Ave., Atlantic City. Like them on Facebook, or call 609-513-0425.
Scott Cronick is an award-winning journalist who has written about entertainment, food, news and more in South Jersey for nearly three decades. He hosts a daily radio show – “Off The Press with Scott Cronick” – 4 to 6 p.m. weekdays on Newstalk WOND 1400-AM, 92.3-FM, and WONDRadio.com, and he also co-owns Tennessee Avenue Beer Hall in Atlantic City, while working on various projects, including charitable efforts, throughout the area. He can be reached at scronick@comcast.net.
