Tavern on the Green is a legendary NY eatery that has never rated particularly well with food critics. Despite that, it's been a NYC mainstay for decades. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Chapter 1: What is Tavern on the Green's historical significance?
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I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Glod. And this is season two of the War on Drugs podcast. Yes, sir. We are back. In a big way.
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Chapter 2: How did Tavern on the Green transition from sheepfold to restaurant?
Like, just panned it. Yeah. Here they go again. Some quotes. Comatose potato salad. Roasted quail that's as dry as a week-old English muffin. They're all just so pithy.
Yeah. New York Magazine said that the salad is the kind that you would get at a third-rate country club, which Tavern on the Green pretty much is. Oh, man. That's pretty bad. Not even just a country club, a third-rate country club. I mean, they're just being mean. I haven't seen any recent reviews. I know that the executive chef who was running the place when it opened, Katie Sparks,
She left after, I think, like six months or something like that. And from the restaurant reviews I read, they were saying, like, it's kind of understandable. Like, they're creating these really extravagant dishes, at least on paper, for seatings of, like, 700 people. And it's really hard to get well-made hot food out to tables when you're serving 700 people at a seating. Yeah.
They were at least a little bit understanding, but I haven't read a recent review of Tavern on the Green and its food. Yeah. So we're going to have to rely on you, I guess, is what I'm saying.
Well, here's my review. It was fine. It wasn't like the food was bad. It was like, oh, this is gross. But it's, you know, it's just, I mean, I'm looking at the menu here. We can read through some of these things. Appetizers. There's a crab cake. There's a calamari salad. There's a country salad, honey roasted figs. That sounds pretty good.
Sure. Steak of Dorset sheep.
Oh, man. Burrata with hearth roasted grape tomatoes. It's all pretty standard stuff. Yeah. And then if you move on to the mains, you've got some diver sea scallops, Scottish salmon for $38, grilled whole fish for $46, rack of lamb. You know, fairly pedestrian. I think I, if I'm not mistaken, I had the lemon thyme chicken under a brick. Did you get to keep the brick? Didn't get to keep the brick.
It was a real tavern on the green brick from the old sheep's fold. Or sheep's hold. That came with blistered green beans, mashed potatoes, and a jus for $35. And it was like, it was pretty good chicken. Yeah. OK, but, you know, truffle fries, shrimp cocktail. It's the menu is not not a third rate country club. Right. But I didn't go in there expecting like New York's finest meal.
I went there for the experience. We were in Central Park and that, you know, you can walk right over there. I'd always wanted to go as a bucket list thing. And now I can say I've been. And I would very much recommend to have that experience if it's something that like piques your interest. If it's like, I've always wanted to try Tavern on the Green, like go try it for sure.
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Chapter 6: How does Tavern on the Green compare to other NYC dining establishments?
And they were doing pretty well until 2001. First of all, Warner Leroy died, very sadly, in February of that year. Then 9-11 happened, which put a dent on New York City as a whole. And that's when Jennifer Oz Leroy, Oz Dorothy, died. Green Witch Leroy had taken over. But it just wasn't happening. They just could not recapture that magic.
The restaurant was never very well reviewed for the food, and it was starting to kind of matter because people weren't going just for the experience, and food was just a much bigger deal, and there were plenty of great restaurants by then. So the restaurant just kind of fell off by the mid-2000s.
I saw in Town and Country magazine the go-to source for facts about New York nightlife. Yeah. They said that the New York Times reviewed over like 23 years or something like that. The New York Times reviewed Tavern on the Green five times and it never got more than one out of four stars. Yeah. That's mean. Like that sounds like a vendetta almost, you know?
I do think it had a bit of a bullseye on it. I'm not saying like the food was ever like great and it was just really unfairly reviewed. But I do think it was definitely a restaurant that critics wanted to kind of poke a hole in.
Yeah. It's just mean.
Yeah, I know.
So I think in 2009, there was a lawsuit in 2008 against the management for sexual and racial harassment of female Black and Hispanic employees. It's not a good look for your restaurant. And then the next year, the Parks Department said, we're kind of done with the Leroy family. I think you guys have run your course. And they decided not to renew their 20-year license with the family.
And so they announced that they would be taking bids and probably assumed that this was going to be the revamping, regeneration, revitalization of Tavern on the Green. And it turns out that no one would go near it. They were like, I don't know, man, that place has a pretty bad reputation and it's going to cost a lot to bring it back to its glory. And it sat there. Unused for five years, I think.
Yeah, from 2010 to 2014, it was not a restaurant. And like you said, it was a big risk because it was a big, expensive undertaking. It had never had a great reputation. I think it was always the target of critics. And so no one would go in. I think they tried a couple of times. There was a guy named Dean Pohl. who ran the Central Park Boathouse restaurant.
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