The Great Jones Cafe was opened on June 8, 1983 by high school friends Rich Kresberg & Phil Hartman. Serving authentic Cajun food, this Bowery juke joint became a popular watering hole for the indie film & music communities & an icon of the bad old days in NYC in the ‘80’s. From 1989-2018, the Jones was owned and operated by Jim Moffett, Bill Judkins & Mark Hitzges, keeping alive the original vibe of the Jones — possibly even improving the juke box — and putting their own stamp on what became a downtown institution, treasured by each succeeding generation.
Category Archives: Stories
Emily Rubin
“YOU’RE HIRED”
By Emily Rubin
Excerpt from: All THE RESTAURANTS IN NEW YORK
Great Jones Café
54 Great Jones Street
(1983-2018)
I was the first waitress of the Great Jones Cafe, or the Jones, as it is still affectionately known. It was June of 1983. My friends Phil Hartman and Rich Kresberg were the new owners, and with all the preparation for the opening–construction, decorating, figuring out the menu, hiring the chef, bartender, and dishwasher, they had not hired the wait staff. I had been hanging around helping with the setting up.
“How about me?” I asked.
“You’re hired,” Rich and Phil said without hesitation.
We toasted my new job with Cajun Martinis—vodka infused with jalapeno peppers. Hot, smooth, peppery, fiery. We were experimenting with various recipes of the signature cocktail. With only 11 tables they figured one waitress could handle the floor. That was fine for the first couple of weeks, but then the word got out: The Great Jones is the spot—a little bit of New Orleans in New York. Jambalaya, Étouffée, Oyster Po-Boys! Good food and a jukebox filled with Dr. John, the Neville Brothers, and the Meters. It got very busy, very quickly.
Soon more wait staff came on board and the Jones family grew. We ate, drank, and danced (often on the tables) with patrons, many of whom hung out until the wee hours. It was one of the best restaurant gigs I ever had. At the end of a shift I was tired on my feet, but the pockets of my apron filled with tips.
–Emily Rubin
Postscript
The kids that might have resulted following a night of fun in the early days of the Great Jones Café would be old enough to have kids of their own by now, but word is they are still dancing on the tables.
Excerpt courtesy of John Donohue
https://alltherestaurants.com/pages/all-the-restaurants-in-new-york
Mark Kirby
MEMORIES OF THE GREAT JONES
By Mark Kirby
Here we are 40 years later. I never thought about making it this far and never thought I would still be in the Great Jones family of friends, ex-lovers and play cousins.* That’s part of the magic of the place and one Phil Hartman.
In some ways the dishwashing job at the Jones remains the best job I ever had. My impressions of this job are colored by what came before. I had quit teaching and wound up with a horrible job as a prep and line cook at a proto yuppie bar, McNeil’s, in Hoboken NJ It was so bad that on Saturday night after we closed I would take the PATH train and head over to the Jones for next to last call just for some sanity and go back home.
One fateful day I noticed a friend and band mate Martha Atwell was back in the Jones tiny kitchen washing dishes and making salads. I asked how much she was making – $5.50 plus tips. That was what I was making back in hell’s kitchen. And if a small woman could do the job I knew I could. What was the job? Washing dishes and making salads. Sometimes I would have to restock cases of beer, or grab another container of fry cut potatoes or lettuce, shredded cabbage and carrots, which I prepped in the basement prep area. All this “work” was accompanied by an 8-track player that only had two tapes one could play: Led Zeppelin IV and Devo’s “Are We Not Men?” It also afforded the time to smoke pot in the walk-in which put me in the perfect zone for this relaxing, Zen-like job. Sadly, I often thought how I was doing this job and making more than I did as a Head Start teacher tasked with molding the lives of four-year-olds. Yikes.
It was so much fun, heaven actually. The tips from the bartenders and waitresses made the money really good for the time. The pay was cash. And free food! And my friends were coming around. I had spare ribs day after day with French fries, and was surprised that I was getting fat. So I switched to the hand made burgers. And fries. Or the Jambalaya. My greatest contribution to the restaurant, one that became a fixture at both the Great Jones and later Two Boots restaurant, was my salad. When I first got there, the carrots and cabbage were mere sprinklings, garnishes. I said “We’re charging $3.50 for a salad? Can’t be cheap with the carrots and red cabbage” and I put much more on the salad and to rave reviews.
I grew to love Rolling Rock beer and kept it flowing in the kitchen as I gazed out at the folks at the bar. This was the beginning of the Yuppie phenomenon and Bruce Willis on “Moonlighting” was a role model to these young dudes: tie up to the top button even late at night on a Friday, and hair rebelliously spiked up in the middle of a receding hairline. The show would be on the TV above the bar with Elvis’s head looking out at these guys watching in rapt attention or hitting on punk rock babes with lines like “I’m a hell raiser in the office but I’m making the company and myself buttloads of money so what are they gonna say” or my favorite “You see” gesturing to the suit and tie, which he now loosened “I’m not really like this. I bought a guitar with my bonus. I’m really into punk.” Those smooth raps didn’t seem to work, though.
There were some stresses and stressful moments like Saturday and Sunday brunch where I started the day sweeping up broken crack vials that covered the sidewalk like a glistening dusting of fresh snow and crunched under every step. I filled up a trash container with this debris? To this day I wonder: did every crack head in the city come down here? How could there be so many crunchy glass vials? Then came the frenzied preparation and then brunch which required busting ass on dinner and brunch pots while doing the usual duty of cleaning plates, bowls and silverware. The other main source of was every time Rich came around everyone got nervous, except the chef Karen, who I dubbed the Evil Chef, to everyone’s delight, including Karen (as long as I didn’t overdo it). She “knew” Rich very well, according to the staff and was also the chef and the creator of the Peanut Butter Pie a/k/a Elvis Cum Pie. She was “close friends” with Jack Daniels and was known to torment some other dishwashers and line cooks, but I knew when to keep quiet, no jokes, and don’t say anything when a dozen burnt pots came to me at once, slamming and crashing on the floor around me.
There were the celebrities, too. When I first started, I was told to watch out for homeless people coming in to beg and that there was no take out food: except for Jean-Michel Basquiat. This old proper white butler would wheel across the street a buffet cart with silver containers and white linen to get his ribs, gumbo, and Karen’s peanut butter pie and go back across the street to where the artist lived. He, Mary Boone and some other gallery types showed up for dinner on occasion. After all the Jones was the hip place to be. Jonathan Demme came there and ended up marrying a Jones waitress. Soon Basquiat would come by himself to get the food. He then came by just to get change and talk endlessly on the bar’s pay phone while smoking cigarettes down to the stinking filter and lighting another one off that. Eventually he was not allowed to use the phone or ask patrons for change of a dollar or just change. Soon he stopped coming by altogether. Then he died.
Most celebrities just blended in, trying to be cool. But not all. One night I looked out the kitchen window and saw a white limo parked out front. A rare sight. Then my name was called, “Kirby!” I looked out at the room and saw two derelicts in oversized, ill-fitting coats and filthy, baggy pants. I looked closer and saw Ghostbusters! It was Dan Aykroyd; his ‘hello’ gave it away. The bum with the slack jaw staring at the jukebox with a beer – not from the Jones – tilting and about to spill, was Bill Murray! They moved around the room having fun. A waitress was crazy for Bill Murray so he pulled her, giggling and red-faced into his lap, while he ordered. Aykroyd went into the bathroom for a looong time. He came out and immediately came into the kitchen, right up to me as I worked and started coke-babbling to me.
“Hello, my name is Danny Boy, what’s yours?” “Kirby.” “Hi Kirby, you like your job?” “Yeah, it’s alright.” “Oh well, me a Billy boy decided to come downtown to have a good time and blahblahblahblahblah yada yada yada.” I thinking wow, I’m getting coke babbled by a Blues Brother and Ghostbuster.
They danced around the bar acting goofy to everyone’s delight. Later I was outside rinsing off the kitchen mats right near the white limo. Two young NYU girls were outside with Murray and Aykroyd. I could tell they went there because they both had ‘Flash dance’ hair cuts and matching NYU sweatshirts with the collars cut off, barely hanging on off the shoulders. Murray said “You girls want to come party with us. We got the limo right here.”
The girls said, “No, no, thanks. We have a test tomorrow.” I was appalled. I went to NYU and wish I had said, “He guys, excuse me, let me talk to them for a minute. Girls, I went to NYU for a year. It sucks. Fuck that test. Party with the Ghostbusters. You’ll remember this for the rest of your lives.” But I minded my own business. I wish I had jumped in the limo my damn self.
Phil would have understood. Phil and I had an instant understanding and connection. He got me and vice versa. He was the kind of boss I hadn’t had but once before, one who let you be you, inspired you to do so, and you felt a part of something, not just a drone working a gig.
The bartender Keith, who along with another bartender, Andy, I knew from Oberlin College. One night Keith said I should bartend. He pulled out a wad of money. “Kirby, this was a kind of average to slow Sunday night, right? I worked from nine o’clock until now almost 2 A.M.. I made $280.” Wow. My rent at the time was $300. But no one was leaving the Jones bartending jobs so I had to wait until Two Boots opened.
I kept going as a customer when Warren Lee was working Sunday and Mondays. Those were legendary debacles of drinking and soul music until dawn and beyond. But he was fired and the Jones always closed the bar early. But I still showed up. It was our community center, a place where I could also count on seeing a familiar face. And have awesome food and delicious beverages. BTW there was no such thing as Avocado Toast on the menu.
* A play cousin is what you would call that neighbor or family friend that is always coming around the house, especially at meal time.
Sam & Eleanor
FREE ELVIS!
By Eleanor Gaver, Sam Messer, Jo Messer
FREE ELVIS! was my only thought when I entered the bar the night of October 28, 2021. The tables were full but the vibe wasn’t the same. This was no Great Jones. Gone were the Cajun shots, the dancing naked on the bar and sex in the bathrooms. All of these diners were well dressed and actually using their napkins.
No wonder Elvis looked forlorn in the window. An assortment of candles and glasses surrounded him, but it was not a shrine more of a dumping ground. Sam moved everything to one side and held open the door so I could assist Elvis in his escape. Embracing him, I marched down Great Jones street with Alex, Jo’s boyfriend. At the corner we stopped and looked back. Jo and Sam were talking to someone. Alex lit a cigarette and sucked on it. What were they doing?
Later, Sam told us the manager stopped him and Sam explained the Elvis was ours and we had put it in the window in 1985. When the manager heard the story he said, “If you had told me I would have given you Elvis.” He even offered Sam and Jo a drink. To make absolutely sure all was well, Jo gave the manager $100 for Elvis which he accepted.
An hour later, Sam got a text from the Owner saying, “Return Elvis immediately or I’ll call the police.” “How did he get your phone number?” “I gave the manager my name and number, “Sam admitted. We laughed. Only Sam would “filch” something and then volunteer his contact info.
The Owner kept calling every ten minutes and we did what every Great Jones regular would do when menaced, we ignored it. His threat was baseless. It was our Elvis plus Jo had paid the manager. Case closed. Not quite.
A couple of days later, a friend texted us a photo from Instagram and asked “Is this you guys?” It was a photo of Sam and I from my IG account of our block party and the Owner, ignorant of his homage to Baldessari, put red circles over our faces, wrote THIEVES at the bottom and posted it on his IG account. “They think they’ve pulled off some sort of clever caper. We caught one of the accomplices red handed while the other made off with the sculpture…and if these crooks don’t return …the Elvis that they have stolen in the next 24 hours we’ll let you know exactly who they are and where to find them.”
Fuck him. Bring it. The owner D.M.ed his post to Jo and she said, “His followers will shit on your stoop.” How quickly the Owner’s lying made his followers turn ugly made us want to return Elvis. Ira Glass from This American Life heard about our Elvis saga and sent a producer to record the return.
Two weeks later, three cops came to our door. “We’re the warrant squad and we have a warrant for your arrest.” Sam explained we had returned the Elvis and they advised us to go to the precinct and tell Detective McVeigh, who was in charge of the case. We sat in the precinct lobby waiting and when Detective McVeigh came down he said, “You’re under arrest.” Sam called his attorney and stepped closer to the door to hear better. McVeigh grabbed Sam’s arm and I said, “Let go of him. He had nothing to do with it. I did it.” McVeigh said,” You just admitted guilt and you’re both under arrest for a felony.” “Felony?” McVeigh nodded. “The Owner said the Elvis is worth $20,000.”
McVeigh fingerprinted us both, put Sam in a cell and handcuffed me to the leg of the table in the interrogation room. Several hours went by. Jo brought a sandwich for Sam and a salad for me, so far the only one I’ve eaten handcuffed.
We hired a lawyer who asked what the Elvis was worth. Sam assured him the Elvis was neither art nor sculpture like the Owner believed but a kitsch plaster bust which can be purchased on EBay today for around $200. For this $200 felony we appeared in court twice and paid our lawyer $5,000.
But the case wasn’t over. If the state kept prosecuting it would get more expensive. Sam asked Phil Hartman, one of the original owners of the Great Jones, to write a letter on our behalf. Luckily, the Assistant District Attorney was a fan of Two Boots Pizza, which Phil also owns, and he called Phil. Phil saved the day by assuring him the Elvis was ours and it was on loan to the Great Jones. The ADA gave us the benefit of the doubt and said our case would be dismissed in six months as long as we didn’t commit any crimes before then. Nine months after freeing Elvis, on July 12, 2022 we were no longer felons.
The Great Jones was a special place for all of us, a place before cell phones where people went because they knew something extraordinary could happen.
In his IG post, the Owner accused us of disrespecting the history of the Great Jones, but the Owner doesn’t understand its history. But we can teach him. Let’s FREE ELVIS AGAIN!
Randy Gun & Jean Michel Basquiat
Downtown musician & Jones bartender, Randy Gun, recalls the artist and Jones neighbor, Jean-Michele Basquiat, in this interview.
Basquiat gave Gun a book embellished with drawings and a dedication, “To Randy, for the best bartender in New York.”
Check out JGC Fine Art’s online exhibition, A GIFT FROM BASQUIAT Harry’s ABC of Mixing Cocktails, 1986 which shows drawings from the book and gives the context of that era, including this essay on the Great Jones Cafe.
Sharon Garbe
SUPERMAN AND HIS FRIENDS WALK INTO A BAR...
By Sharon Garbe
Christopher Reeve and his friends showed up one night and just like everyone else, they had to wait 45 minutes for a table. Welcome to the Great Jones Cafe in the 1980s! Wasn’t it crazy that people would wait up to two hours to eat at Great Jones? Sure, sure, entrees like gumbo, blackened fish, popcorn shrimp, dirty rice, jambalaya, smothered chicken, etc. were excellent, but honestly, we had the best burgers, fries, salad, soups, chili, wings, and cornbread. And for a while, chicken livers. You could eat well for under $10. The ingredients were high quality, the menu was curated with care, and the dishes were tinkered with until they were perfect and importantly, reproducible. Rich Kresberg, one of the original owners, stressed again and again that we had to aim for consistency. He would call in the evening to check in if he couldn’t stop by, and if someone new was working, he would check that the salads had the right ratio of shredded carrots and red cabbage. He cared, which made everyone else care. Same with Phil Hartman, the other original owner. He would pop in to chat and gauge the mood and see if anyone needed a drink on the house. Staff who weren’t working were in and out every night. Former staff came back. I was there for 7 years, 6 or so as a part-time manager. It was terrific training. I got my first job working in website content management because the guy who hired me was impressed that I’d managed the Great Jones.
I liked managing the Great Jones. I didn’t have to be there until 11am. Once I was there, I spent the morning sipping coffee and checking things, counting money and empty bottles, putting together the various orders to place, figuring out staff schedules, paying bills. If Karen Haglof was cooking in the kitchen she would usually take a break around then and come out to the bar area, stirring cornbread batter, or doing some other multitasking, to watch TV and dazzle me and the prep people with her Jeopardy! prowess.
One of my favorite tasks during the day was shopping. I would take short trips in the neighborhood to places like Shapiro’s Hardware, or the grocery store on Mercer and 3rd – was that called Sloan’s? I loved going to David Davis to buy the big, colorful chalk we used on the specials board. If the early shift waitress that day didn’t want to write up the specials board, I would gladly do it, adding chevrons, polka dots, paisleys, drop-shadows to liven it up. I also went over to the Bowery to shop at Paragon or Balter for things that couldn’t wait for a bigger order, and I’d deposit the money from the night before at the bank on the corner of Broadway and Great Jones. Or was it Bond St.? Anyway, one time after making the deposit I was at the ATM inside and a fellow behind me said, “Excuse me, Miss. You have something red and sticky on the back of your jacket.” I just rolled my eyes and said, “Oh well, nothing I can do about it now,” and went on with my withdrawal. I figured I’d backed into the stack of ketchup bottles that I’d been marrying before I left (that’s when you empty the ketchup from a mostly empty bottle into another bottle). I found out later I was the victim of a popular ruse at the time: A miscreant would squirt ketchup on you, alert you to the problem, then wait for you to freak out and take your jacket off so they could steal your money.
Speaking of scoundrels, we had a very Bowery-specific theft once. The culprit(s) made off with the petty cash, Bud quarts and blackberry brandy. Remembering that reminds me of the safe. It was a metal cylinder in the floor behind the bar. The bartender from the night before would have put all the money in there, stuffed in a purple cotton Crown Royal bag. I would collect the money, checks and orders slips, then down to the basement office I’d go, to count and tally things while listening to the prep guys like wonderful Bill Judkins (who later became a manager) and gals (although I only remember there being one gal, Ingrid?) washing, chopping, talking, music playing on the radio. Rich taught me how to count money quickly and neatly. I had to roll coins, too. I found counting money meditative, and reconciling order slips with the evening’s take was an enjoyable puzzle to solve. But I also had to be prepared to jump into action for things like fixing the ice machine or finding a repairman for the walk-in refrigerator.
Besides rounds of Jeopardy! in the morning, there were deliveries. Crates of beautiful produce, boxes of spices, jars of chopped garlic, dry goods, paper goods, fish – so much fish and shrimp that had to be put away with a drop-everything urgency. Cakes and pies arrived to augment Karen’s bread pudding and lemon chess pie, and then the butcher would arrive. I remember a surreal scene one morning after we’d had a delivery by two cute guys we nicknamed “The Meat Men.” I heard yelling and looked out the window and saw them brawling in the street, their bloody aprons making the situation look more desperate than it probably was. I ran out the door, yelling “Meat Men, Meat Men, stop fighting!” Mark Hitzges was the chef that day. I got teased with that line for a long time.
I was ambitious about decorating for holidays. Once, I bought a crate of Spanish moss in the flower district and strung it up all over the place with beads and streamers for Mardi Gras. That wasn’t such a great idea because it kept falling into food and we worried there could be mites in it. In winter I bought garlands of pine at the Union Square Farmers’ Market to hang along with lights. And we’d turn the column supports into red-striped candy canes.
One winter night the film director, Wim Wenders, was hanging around late. He was there with Phil (he executive produced Phil’s film, No Picnic). Phil had to leave for a bit and asked me to keep Wim company until he got back. I sat down and had a beer with him. He was tapping the label on his bottle of Foster’s Ale, muttering ‘kangaroo’ over and over. I asked if he was going to make a movie about kangaroos. “No,” he answered. “I will make a movie with kangaroos.” Phil told me Wim helped him close up for the night, which involved hanging the heavy metal gate over the window.
I guess I’ve wandered back into celebrity territory. Anyone who worked at Great Jones during the Jean-Michel Basquiat years has a story or two. He was very sweet, and it was painful to see him so wrecked some days. One weekend during brunch when it was quiet, he wandered over to the specials board and began artfully erasing words. Ugh! I had to be the grown-up. I told him that it was nice, but people needed to be able to read the menu so they could order stuff and we could make a living. He felt bad, then I felt bad.
We had a couple of celebrity colleagues. One of them was the photographer, Nan Goldin. She was bartending the night when a group of Wall Street clods sitting at the two tables by the window got out of control after drinking too much schnapps – yes, schnapps!—and were cut off. One of them picked up the potted rubber plant in the corner and threw it toward the bar in protest.
Besides managing during the day, I picked up waitressing and hostessing shifts or filled in when people didn’t show up. I was there for the infamous evening when Gene, a regular, went berserk over some drug money he felt he was owed by another patron. Suddenly, voices were raised, then Gene started smashing bottles and menacing everyone with a jagged bottle. Sweet Edgar Green was bartending. He kept very calm and offered to give Gene money from the till to settle the debt, but Gene was in a drug-fueled frenzy and couldn’t be reasoned with. I don’t remember if people – staff and customers— were herded into the kitchen or escaped there. Instead of going with the crowd, clever me, I ducked into the bathroom for safety. But then I realized the flaw in my plan. What if Gene needed to pee?! There was a flimsy hook and eye between me and a madman who might need to relieve himself. Being behind a closed door I can’t tell you how the situation was resolved. I only know that Gene didn’t have to pee and he was 86’d.
Being 86’d reminds me of another story. My last weird story. I was working one night and a friendly customer pulled me over and whispered that the guy at the next table was doing something he shouldn’t be. I looked over and there was George, a regular, watching TV with his pants undone, jerking off. Guess he forgot where he was. He was 86’d, too. The best part of the story is how cool the customer and her date were about it. They just went back to eating their meal. They’d probably waited for that table. We gave them a round of drinks on the house.