The White Horse

Reviewed By:

Orrin Hatch

This place has really changed since I first started going there, everybody I know says the same thing.

Don't get me wrong: I don't mean that the place has changed physically. It's still made entirely of wood and brass, the way a good bar should be, and it's still dark and cool inside. There are still the long-legged, short-backed chairs by the bar, there's still the brass rail to rest your feet on. It all looks the same.

But the atmosphere's different, somehow.

Mainly, I think it's the change of bartenders. When I first started going there, it was two Irish guys, name of Jerry (never knew his last name), and Murph (never knew his first). Jerry was the younger of the two, and always had a rumpled shirt, a loosened tie, and a pen behind his ear. He always seemed to be overworked, and in a rush. Murph was much calmer. If you'd met him outside a bar, you might have guessed he was a bank-manager from his appearance and behavior. Both of them had the true bartender's skill, though. They remembered what you drink, and they'd know instinctively if you felt like a chat or would prefer to be left alone. Both of them seemed to have been there for ever.

Then one day, they're gone. I've no idea what happened to them - they've been gone for a while, and nobody seems to know why they disappeared. First there was a revolving door-load of temps and fill-ins, and now finally they seem to have settled on a new pair. But it's not the same, somehow.

I haven't even been there often enough lately to find out the new people's names. Don't get me wrong - they seem pleasant enough, and they pull just as good a pint as Jerry and Murph. But it's not the same, somehow.

Reviewer's Rating

Good place, just not quite as good as it used to be

Miscellaneous items of interest:

• Two TVs. One is almost always tuned to CNBC, except when there's a day game featuring the Yankees or the Mets.
• Jerry once told me that a patron I recognized as an employee of a local bank regularly came in at 9:30 and left at 4:30.
• Has a team photo of every World-Series winning Yankees team on the wall.
• Once saw the ex-Governor of New Jersey in there