Our Concept

Building on America’s rich history of taverns, The New American Tavern is a movement to build a new kind of tavern across America. Mixing the convivial and the civic with good food, good drink, good conversation, these taverns will serve as a community’s social hub and unofficial civic center to build stronger and more engaged communities.

The Tavern’s Place in American History

Throughout much of America’s history, taverns have served as an unofficial central town hall, courtroom, marketplace and communications centers. From Dobbins House Tavern in Gettysburg, PA where local militia gathered to join ranks with the Continental Army to Fraunces Tavern in New York where the federal government departments of Foreign Affairs and Treasury and War were once housed, taverns have played a rich role in building the America we know today. We plan to revive this tradition and to refresh it for the 21st century.

Our Approach

The New American Tavern will reignite this American tradition by ensuring that neighborhoods across the country have welcoming spaces where citizens can unwind, learn, and connect. Our approach will merge restaurateurship with best practices in hospitality, social enterprise, event management, and civic engagement programming. Our menu will feature sustainably sourced classics that pay homage to diverse American stories. Our staff will be composed of engaging and welcoming conversationalists. Our architecture and design will incorporate elements that foster dialogue. And our programming will foster engagement and increase social capital among our local guests. Almost non-of what we will do is new; what is new is the combination of things we bring together, our holistic approach and our unyielding commitment to maximizing our guests experience and the value we provide to our guests, the communities in which we do business and in larger American society at large.

How We Get There

But we’re not there, yet. The Tavern is currently building toward that vision through a three-stage launch plan. Right now, we’re in phase one, conducting small-scale events often in partnership with existing organizations. Since our first event in December 2011, we’ve hosted more than 700 guests at over 32 events at more than 29 bars and taverns in neighborhoods around New York City. These events have included multi-partisan debate viewings, primary result watching nights, a State of the Union Party, Policy-and-Politics family style dinners, and will soon expand into SkillShare™ events, panels, unconferences and roundtables – all at taverns! We’ve developed a vibrant community of fans and regulars who enjoy our programming and contributing to building towards the larger vision. And that’s all within the limitations of not having our own space, our own staff!

In the coming months we’ll move into phase two as we begin to partner with sponsors to deploy urban pop-up tavern/pavilions. After learning what we can from those events and further growing our community we will enter the third and final phase of its strategy and open a brick-and-mortar venue in New York City. And one day, another one of those venues may just show up in your town!

Want to Learn More?

Visit our Library to get more in-depth information about our concept, the history of taverns, our approach, and much more!

Visit the Tavern News page to keep up with the progress of our movement towards this vision.