As old as the town itself, the Belmont Tavern in Belleville, New Jersey is as authentic an Italian immigrant restaurant experience as you can get. The proprietor, who goes by no more of a name than “Jimmy,” knows everything that has ever happened in this part of town, and knew the Four Seasons as they were coming up. My visit to this restaurant, and my experience with Jimmy, was one I will never forget. And now I kind of feel like someday, and that day may never come, Jimmy may call on me to do a service for him…
Belleville, New Jersey. Population: 35,000. Three square miles of congested land stuck between a highway, a landfill, crime-ridden downtown Newark, and a river laced with oil and refuse. From the original French, Belleville means “beautiful city.” But one could easily debate the merits of that name.
“Jimmy! My name is Dan and I play Tommy DeVito in the Canadian company of Jersey Boys. Your restaurant is famous in our world, and I’d love to come visit. Will you be there on Monday night?” Jimmy is the owner of the Belmont Tavern, a legendary New Jersey institution, and I have heard that he is the guy to talk to if you want to hear stories from back in the day.
“Yeah, I’ll be here.”
My wife and I arrange to meet our friends Jessica and Kent on Monday night for what I keep calling a “dinner adventure.” I remind everyone that I am not sure if this place will be any good; I just feel a need to visit. The restaurant has been around since the early days of the Four Seasons, and is on the short list of places that Tommy DeVito and Frankie Valli still hang out in today.
Frankie invited us all to his sound-check before one of his own concerts in Toronto.
©Daniel Robert Sullivan
“Do you think you’ll get any special treatment?” Our friends ask this as we jump into their car.
“No. They don’t know me or anything. I just want to get a feel for what the place is like. I’m hoping Jimmy will make time to tell us a bit about what the neighborhood was like back in the 50s and 60s, but he might be too busy. Who knows?”
We drive from Manhattan out into the vast suburbs of New Jersey. We ride in style in an SUV with a sunroof the size of a fresco at the Sistine Chapel. (And our friends humbly insist that the car is not actually an SUV, for an SUV would be a lot bigger. But Cara and I still have room to waltz in the back seat, so I’m not sure I believe them.) We have printed directions from Google, and a GPS for backup. The drive should take twenty minutes at the most.
An hour later we have to call another friend for help.
“Gina, you grew up in New Jersey. How do we get to the Belmont Tavern on Bloomfield Avenue?”
“You guys need to get back on the highway. There are two Bloomfield Avenues, and you’re on the wrong one.” The suburbs of New Jersey foil Google and GPS with their duplicitous street names.
We get back on the highway, find the correct exit, and quickly pass two boarded-up schools. One of them actually has a sign that reads “Girl’s Entrance” over its side door, so I can assume it is a school that has been boarded-up for a long, long time. We ride alongside a river. Or is it a creek? Whatever its label, it is no more than a path of dirty water chunked full of old tires. (Jessica calls it Belleville’s Lazy River Ride.)
As we get closer to the center of town, we begin to travel along Tommy DeVito Drive. We pass Tommy DeVito’s boyhood home, a typical brick-bottom, wood-top white house at one end of a congested road. And then we see the Belmont.
For all its history and lore, the Belmont Tavern ain’t much to look at.
The Belmont is a small, brick building with blinds covering its two front windows, making it impossible to see inside. It is stuck between a West Indian grocery and a live poultry warehouse. There is no one on the dark street as we pull up outside, so we are convinced the place is going to be empty. The Belmont has a few generic beer signs and one placard that touts its famous Chicken Savoy. I have heard that the Chicken Savoy is delicious, but I am feeling a little weird about it now that I see the live poultry warehouse right next door.
We walk slowly to the front door, each of us city-folk a bit wary of what may be on the other side. I step forward to be the first one through, as I am the one that convinced everyone to join me out here in the first place. I open the door, and can instantly sense that the place is jam-packed full of diners. Our adventure begins.
“Daniel Robert Sullivan! Get over here!” Five men drinking at the bar have seen me come in, and they know my name. Now, Jimmy-the-owner is the only person I have spoken to on the phone, and I only gave him my first name. Clearly, these five guys at the bar have Googled me and have memorized my full name.
Their accents are just as strong as I hoped. They are just as boisterous as I imagined. And they are far nicer than I could have asked for.
The guys inundate me with questions, each fighting for a turn to speak. They want to know all about the show up in Canada. They want to know where I am from. They want to tell me about Belleville. They want me to sing. We’ve been inside only two minutes.
Jimmy fights his way through the guys to introduce himself, and seems genuinely happy that I have arrived. He says it is “real good” to have a Jersey Boy here in the bar, and that he hopes these guys will leave me alone long enough for us to eat. (He doesn’t realize that I don’t want to be left alone, that I want to visit with all of them.)
Our server comes over to usher us to a table, a prime table in the corner that has been waiting for our arrival. The place really is packed, and we have to maneuver around fifteen checkered tablecloths before reaching our own. The voices in here are loud, accented, and joyous. Every rising tone has the sound of a story that just has to be told.
We order a carafe of chilled Chianti and dive into the menu. I eat Italian food all the time, but I must admit that there are a number of items on this menu that I don’t recognize. Actually, the entire third page is made up of items I don’t recognize. My group leaves it to me to do the ordering, but I think it smarter to ask for recommendations.
Our server leads us through descriptions of the popular items, and we end up ordering heaps of Shrimp Beeps, Clams Oreganato, and fresh Italian Bread. We follow that with a giant bowl of Ziti Pot Cheese and two overflowing platters of “Mad” Chicken and the famous Chicken Savoy. I choose not to think about the fact that the chicken we are eating was probably an actual resident of “the old neighborhood” just days ago.
As we eat, we are visited by each of the men that greeted me at the bar earlier. They each want their picture taken with me, making me feel like quite the celebrity as I stand up to accommodate each one. They just happen to have a Fuji disposable camera with them, but is it possible that they bought it just for this occasion?
Jimmy’s father is the first to come over, and he tells me how he used to watch The Four Lovers play at the Silhouette Club down the street. The Four Lovers was one of the original incarnations of the Four Seasons, and the Silhouette Club features prominently in Jersey Boys.
Jimmy comes by to thank me for the autographed show photo I brought for him, and shows us some of the pictures on the wall. Sinatra, DiMaggio, Sammy Davis Jr., Joe Pesci...they’ve all hung out at the Belmont at one time or another and they’ve all left kind messages on their framed photographs. Jimmy points out a corner of the bar and says, “By the way, that’s the corner where Joe Pesci used to play guitar and sing when he was coming up. He used to play for tips every weekend.” Joe Pesci as a solo music act. Who knew?
A cop from Nutley (that’s the next town over) comes to introduce himself next. He is an Irish guy, and asks me about how I feel being part of an Italian show when I am obviously Irish, too. This cop grew up down the street from here in the house next door to Nick Massi, one of the original Four Seasons. He says he’s always felt like he was in the minority as an Irishman. When he has a picture taken of the two of us Irish boys, he jokes that it should go up on the Jersey Boys Blog. (This tells me that these guys actually check out the Jersey Boys Blog. That was unexpected.)
Anita from the kitchen comes to check in on us, asking about the Beeps and the Savoy. We tell her the Beeps disappeared too quickly, and we are still debating who gets to eat the last piece of Chicken Savoy.
An older gentleman sits down with us, telling us how he came in tonight because he heard I was going to be here. He just finished playing a game of fast-pitch softball and is tired, but tonight is a special occasion, he says. They love connecting with Jersey Boys people. People forget, he tells us, that the Four Seasons struggled ten years in this town before they made it big. They played music every night at one bar or another, trying to make ends meet as best they could. And Frankie Valli, he says, always thanks his hometown when given the opportunity.
The cop comes back, leaning in close to us this time. “You see this guy next to you?” he whispers. “Check out his ankle.” His ankle is locked up with a parole bracelet, for this guy is, apparently, a former mob thug who isn’t allowed to leave the area. He is eating the biggest bowl of linguini I have ever seen.
We are told that Tommy DeVito was sitting at this very table two weeks ago when he came by for dinner before being inducted into the New Jersey Hall of Fame. While here, Tommy was reminiscing about robbing the department store across the street three times while he was growing up. This department store used to be New Jersey’s largest supplier of school uniforms for kids, and it is just a block away from where Tommy lived.
Nick Massi’s son was also here last week, and spent the entire time talking about his father. This seems typical. The people in this town are proud of the Four Seasons. They are proud of their town. They have a giant American flag behind the bar, but it is clear that the association with their township roots much deeper than any sense of nationalism.
The guys at the bar make us promise to visit again, and we make that promise. Another trip would be mutually beneficial: we get to hear some good stories and they get to view their town as a destination instead of a jumping-off point. While they may be glad the Four Seasons come from here, it seems to really thrill these guys when people come to here.
Plus, if we come here again, we’ll get to have more of those Beeps.