Not sure if I ever went inside, but Pere's was something of a landmark lounge in Roseville. As I recall it was at Roseville and Seventh avenues. This photo was made from a postcard from the NPL collection.
This message has been edited by cbonaire from IP address 171.75.71.155 on Sep 23, 2003 7:51 AM
REMEMBER IT WELL.YOUNG DEMS OF ROSEVILLE WOULD HAVE THERE MONTHLY MEETINGS THEREOF WHICH I WAS A MEMBER.
ALSO HAD MY NIECES CHRISTENING PARTY THERE '1966'.
HOWEVER THE ORIGINAL PERE'S WAS LOCATED ON SEVENTH AVE BETWEEN ROSEVILLE AND NINTH AVE,BURNED DOWN IN EARLY SIXTIES.
Wow, Pere's looks really kewl! Too bad we can't have our first Fridays there! I remember walking past Pere's everyday to get to school. I also remember that they had a liquor store attached that you entered from the Roseville Avenue side (near Cynthia's). Deb
Pere's was a very nice cocktail lounge/restaurant - it was originally owned by Max and Helen Gruber who sold it to a man named Charlie. His father "Pop" did the cooking -(it was a limited menu - mostly sandwiches, steaks, burgers, etc.)-he had been a cook at Schrafft's on Broad St. before he retired and came to help his son at Pere's. The bar was recessed so that the bartender was at eye level with the seated customers. When I worked there parttime on Fri's & Sat's from '69-'73, the bartenders were Cliff, Earl, Moe, Billy and, on occasion, my cousin John Washington. Charlie ran the liquor store until closing, then came behind the bar. Every Friday, the schoolteachers from the Newark schools nearby came there to meet and unwind - the place was always packed. Earl taught me to mix drinks and I helped out behind the bar during the "happy hour". There was a piano player on Fri's & Sat's named Lou - he had very poor eyesight and wore very thick glasses so he wasn't able to read music but he could play anything from memory from the current popular tunes for the young people, which he would listen to on the radio and memorize, to the standards which appealed to the older crowd. He had a regular following - among them were my aunt and uncle -Ed & Nancy Washington - and a number of their friends, friends of mine - the Bradbury twins, Ellen & Cathy, my brother Don and his wife who also frequented Pere's on weekends in those days with their large group of friends, and my cousin John and his future wife Cheryl and her friends - All different age groups but it was the place everyone met to sit around, have a drink and sing along with Lou whose wife Mary was the hatcheck girl on the weekends (they lived across the street in the MacEvoy Apts, so it was very convenient, since he was unable to drive). When Max Gruber owned Pere's, a man had to wear a jacket - if you didn't have one, they had some coats in the coatroom you could borrow, but you couldn't sit at the bar without one - Later, when Charlie owned Pere's, he relaxed that rule, but there was still a dresscode to which patrons adhered. When Charlie sold Pere's, he bought another place in Springfield center on Morris Ave. - I think it was called the Spirit of '76 or something like that, and Lou & Mary went with him there. By that time, my son Kevin was old enough for school, I had moved to Maplewood and started a fulltime job in a doctor's office, so I stopped working for Charlie. The new group who bought Pere's turned it into a supper club for the black clientele and I had heard that it did quite well for a while.
