Remembering Bev, Jack and the Harbor Inn
With the news of Beverly Cahill passing away recently, many Islanders thought of the good times at the Harbor Inn, a tavern run by Bev and her husband Jack for 20 years, between 1965 and 1985. Many have said that the Harbor Inn was the best tavern in the history of the Island, and that the Cahills made it special. In 2015 we published this remembrance of the Harbor Inn in the words of the people who went there, a history of the camaraderie, the laughs and the connection to community it created. This is a time when we could all use a little Harbor Inn in our lives.
45 Burns Road is a private residence now, but from 1965 to 1985 it was the Coecles Harbor Inn (the “Coecles” was almost never used in referring to the tavern). Owned by Jack and Beverly Cahill, the place remains embedded in the collective memory of Shelter Islanders over the age of 50. Charlie Beckwith, who tended bar, called it “the best neighborhood tavern in the history of Shelter Island.” If you lived here in those days, you not only remember the Inn, you probably have a story or two to tell about it.
Jack Cahill — “The perfect guy to have it.”
Jack Cahill originally came from off-Island, but had friends here and married a local girl, Beverly (Bev) Price. They settled in New Jersey to raise a family, but several generations of Beverly’s family lived on Shelter Island in those days, and the couple visited frequently. “Jack liked it out here,” Bev said. “He was a policeman in New Jersey, it was the 60s, and there were a lot of problems at that time.”
In 1965, the Cahills decided to buy the Inn and move their young family to Shelter Island. The family quarters were on the second floor, and the kitchen downstairs behind the bar. Bev worked as a nurse three nights a week while Jack was bartending, and the kids were upstairs. “So it worked out,” she said.
Jack was running a drinking establishment, but he was a family man first. He closed the bar early on Christmas Eve, and stayed closed on holidays because he felt people should be home with their families, including his staff and himself.
By all accounts, Jack created an atmosphere at the Inn that was friendly and surprisingly wholesome. Former Town Councilman, Paul Shepherd said, “Jack Cahill ran a good, clean establishment, with no small effort on his part to keep the language fit for mixed company.” He was known to shoo stragglers at closing time with the time-honored saying: “I don’t care if you don’t go home, but you can’t stay here.”
The best qualities of the Inn sprang from the personality of Jack. Retired Town Building Inspector Bill Banks said that Jack, by his own admission, wasn’t a particularly gifted storyteller, and his joke delivery wasn’t the best. Charlie Beckwith said Cahill, “got up to tell jokes on St. Patrick’s Day, but it was loud so you couldn’t really hear them.”
What came through loud and clear was his heart.
“My husband was Irish,” said Bev said. “I would say he was a draw.”
Bartenders —“Jack Cahill would pick and choose.”
Charlie Beckwith was barely of legal drinking age (18 at the time) when Jack started running the Inn, and he worked there for more than a decade. Known for his preemptive bartending, Charlie could keep one eye on the parking lot, so by the time a regular customer had stepped through the door, their beverage of choice was waiting on the bar.
Chris Gross, who tended bar on weekends at Harbor Inn was a central part of many people’s memories of the place; warm, funny, plain spoken, and discreet. What happened at the Inn, as far as she is concerned, will stay at the Inn. She said of the Cahills: “I loved them to pieces. They were great people to work for and it was a great establishment.”
Anders Langendal who was known as “Andy the Swede,” tended bar, and undertook building and woodwork improvements, including recovering the slate pool table — twice. Anders later established a boat-building business in Greenport, but in those days his artistic skills were directed to a rebuild of the beautiful mahogany bar.
Jack asked Anders to build an extension of the bar to keep customers from blocking the path to the kitchen. Anders arrived a little before closing time one night, “with a handsaw and cut the end off the bar,” he said. “Jack gave me quite a look when I walked in with that big saw.” Anders then matched it up with a piece of Honduran mahogany he had found, and made a handrail for the new extension.
The “Over the Hill” Gang
Before sports bars were invented, there was one TV in the Inn, and it got two channels. In the fall, a Giants game was on every Sunday afternoon, and the Yankees, Mets, and Red Sox dominated the summer. Red Sox legend, Carl Yastrzemski grew up in Bridgehampton, and more than one patron of the Inn had played against him when Bridgehampton met Shelter Island in high school baseball.
When Jack heard that the Little League team needed more support, he put together a softball team, the “Over the Hill Gang,” and pitted them against a team organized by The Dory. It became an annual event. Starting in the 1970s, on the third weekend in September, the annual Dory vs. Harbor Inn baseball game raised money for the Little League for decades.
The Best Location —“You had to know it was there.”
As a location for a business, the Inn defied the real estate maxim about location every time the crowd got four-deep at the bar. Charlie Beckwith said, “It was off the beaten track. You had to know it was there.”
People came in many conveyances. A pair of regulars used to land their airplane at Klenawicus Field, taxi down to the corner of Cartwright and Burns, and walk across the street to the bar. More than one patron remembers Jim Burke (aka “Stony Burke) of Cartwright Road riding his lawnmower when he was no longer able to drive. Boaters with moorings at Skip Tuttle’s near South Ferry made it there, and sailors in Coecles Harbor left their dinghies at the end of Burns Road and walked up.
Music was an important part of the experience. The jukebox was stocked with country, and rock and roll, and a player piano stood by. On weekends live music was sometimes hired, and other times impromptu.
A man known only as Gus, from Coecles Harbor Marina, came in to socialize and often ended up playing guitar. Islander Fred Ogar played a washtub bass, and others joined in with kazoos.
The Island After-Party
From the first “Open House” shortly after they began operating, to the final New Year’s Eve farewell party of 1985, the Cahills made the best parties on the Island.
The St. Patrick’s Day events were remarkable. A green arch announced, Erin go Bragh, across a doorway. Wearing a vest festooned with shamrocks, and a large green top hat, Jack presided over the merriment. A slab of plywood, and a plastic tablecloth over the pool table transformed it into a buffet featuring corned beef and cabbage.
After any major Island event, whether joyous or somber, the Inn was the place people gathered. A gathering of mourners still dressed out of respect for the departed often followed wakes and funerals.
Joanne Sherman took her kids there for hot dogs after the Independence Day fireworks in the early 80s. “Jack was behind the bar,” she said. “He cocked his head back toward the kitchen and told us to go cook them ourselves. While we were in the back, the bar filled with people, and for a nearly an hour Jack called back hot dog, hamburger and French fry orders and we filled them.”
After the Shelter Island Fire Department Chicken BBQ one year, the crowd at the Inn was thick, with such a line out the door for the bathroom, that Cahill yelled, “My cesspool is going to overflow!”
The Island’s Den
On ordinary days, the Inn was the Island’s den — a wood-paneled room outfitted with dartboard and tabletop shuffleboard for relaxing with friends and relatives. Carpenters, painters, fire and rescue workers came in after work and drank Rheingold or Schaefer. Once in a while, someone ordered a Screwdriver.
Jack kept a big jar of pickled pigs feet, and another of pickled eggs on hand. When a farmer brought in an enormous cauliflower, he made a dip and served it. “It was a great place of camaraderie,” Bill Banks said. “Sitting around talking about the day’s events. People had their disagreements but they worked them out usually.”
On weekends it was often packed. Kids shot pool while their parents were at the bar in the next room. “I heard some of the funniest things I would ever hear in my life at that place,” said Paul Shepherd. “It was where relationships began and ended, sometimes, but also where they were nurtured.”
The story of the Harbor Inn belongs to the people who laughed, drank, found inspiration and camaraderie there. “It was like something from a fairy tale,” Bill Banks said. “ I wouldn’t wish time away, but I’m glad I am old enough to have experienced it.”
