City Tavern, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

What happened

The City Tavern was built by subscription on Second Street in 1773, cost more than three thousand pounds, and was called by John Adams the most genteel tavern in America. More than two hundred men met in it in May 1774 over the closing of the port of Boston; the first Fourth of July dinner was held there in 1777. Fire took part of the building in March 1834 and the rest was cleared by 1854. What stands on the corner is therefore a reconstruction: the National Park Service rebuilt the tavern for the bicentennial and opened it in 1976, and from 1994 the chef Walter Staib ran it as a colonial restaurant with an eighteenth-century carte. Overseas visitors were about two-fifths of the trade. When they stopped coming the business did not survive: Staib served his last dinner on 31 October 2020 and gave up the lease, describing a building that needed millions of dollars of work, with no sprinklers, no lift and ageing services.

What is there now

Dark, and owned by the federal government. The Park Service advertised for an operator in January 2023 and its superintendent said in June 2026 that lease negotiations were under way and might conclude by the end of the summer. Meanwhile Historic Philadelphia and an events company opened the walled garden behind the shuttered building from 25 June 2026, Thursdays to Sundays until Labor Day, with food, drink, lawn games and costumed interpreters. The rooms themselves have served nobody since October 2020.

Sources

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