Anchored in History - 1849
The Tavern’s history begins in pre-civil war America; back to when the Amish first settled in Western Pennsylvania. Jim Poppino, a young New York doctor who had interned in New Wilmington, came back from his residency at Case Western University and started his practice in the small town he had grown to love. In 1849, he built a large Greek Revival family home on the corner of Neshannock and Market streets.
Serving as the doctor’s office as well as a place for community to gather and discuss pre-civil war politics, the stately home quickly became an anchor for the small but progressive town. The Poppinos were known abolitionists and rumors have long held of The Tavern being a stop on the Underground Railroad.
The Tavern - 1931
Cora & Ernst met and married as students while attending Westminster College. One graduated before the other and in 1931, while waiting for their young spouse to graduate, they started a little restaurant in a home across from campus and, despite the country being seven years into Prohibition, decided to call it The Tavern, though it served no spirits or ale. After a successful start and another graduation, the young couple set their sites on expansion into a larger space.
By this time, the doctor’s home on New Wilmington’s old town square had sat empty for some years and, with their successful start as surprise restaurateurs, the Durrasts seized the opportunity to grow their business in the prominent building.
Cora and Ernst ran The Tavern on the Square for a number of years together before Ernst passed. Cora poured herself into the restaurant. The service staff was trained to recite the entire menu by memory. Cora stumbled upon The Tavern’s famed sticky bun one day when her cook was out and they had no dinner rolls. She rolled up sugar in the cook’s dough et voila, a star was born.
Legacy - 1979
By the 1960’s The Tavern on the Square had become a destination restaurant. Cora’s ingredients to success were her complete and total dedication. Guests recount of the process of dining at The Tavern.
It began with a reservation card you received in the mail. You brought the card with you to the restaurant to claim your reservation where Cora greeted you at the door. The card was given by the Maitre’d to the server. The server recorded your order on the card and then gave the card to the kitchen. At the end of the meal, Cora tallied the bill on the same card with a hand-written thank you.This was the story, day after day for 55 years.
Cora Durrast was a task-master. She ruled with an iron fist but the velvet glove was always there for her dedicated staff.
She’d scold one day for not knowing the difference between cabbage and iceberg and the next she would secretly purchase a coveted prom gown for a waitress, telling her to go pick it up at the store down the street. Cora Durrast grew into a legend. And her legacy lives on…
Survive & Thrive - 1980 to 2020
The Tavern on the Square was owned and operated by several local husband and wife teams in the years following Cora’s reign. Jay & Jenny Behm refurbished the interior, bringing their rustic chic esthetic that would influence later renovations. Joe and Susan Hougelman welcomed thousands of guests in with their family friendly cooking and warmth.
Despite its and closing for several years between ownership, The Tavern remained a destination restaurant for those with fond memories. However, the industry changed drastically after Cora’s death in 1986.
New Wilmington had always been a dry town and if a restaurant did not have a liquor license and alcohol sales to help with the bottom line, it had to focus on volume to survive. National vendors were offering commodity products at discount bulk prices. Scratch cooking and local sourcing were becoming things of the past. Labor prices, insurance and overhead prices were going up. And still, the margins were as tight as ever. The Tavern closed ‘permanently’ in 2020. Or so it would seem.
A New Beginning - 2022
Matt and Maggie Noble met in culinary school in Napa Valley, California. Matt had a degree in business from San Francisco State University but worked for a craftsman uncle through college doing restoration work on the city’s historic homes. Maggie, a Western Pennsylvania native, graduated from Chatham University before spending several years working as an organic farm-hand by day and server by night in Charleston, South Carolina. Both children of the 80’s and 90’s, Matt and Maggie craved a deeper connection to what sustains us, food; how its grown, how its prepared, how its served. This is where their interests intersected and this is how they met.
They both worked in the industry after culinary school, Maggie worked in several famed Napa wineries kitchens including Silver Oak and Cakebread and stayed on to become a professional instructor and Matt worked at Michelin starred Solbar in Calistoga and later became head brewer at Turner Pils in Berkeley, winning a World Beer Cup Gold Medal for best Pilsner.
After getting married, and pregnant with their second child, they moved across the country to Maggie’s hometown of Sewickley Pennsylvania. Matt returning to remodels and restorations in historic Sewickley and the Pittsburgh area and Maggie digging into motherhood and starting a cooking-focused blog, the noble home.
It was on a trip up the highway, celebrating their anniversary that they learned of New Wilmington.
‘We were looking for a cup of coffee on a Sunday, we didn’t realize how hard it would be to find one…and we never did, but in the search, we did find this quaint country town.’ Matt
Months later, the couple found a beautiful historic home right in New Wilmington, it just so happened to be the childhood home of previous Tavern owner, Jay Behm. Stranger than fiction.
The Challenge
The Tavern on the Square had still been open for several months while the Nobles settled into country life and a major historic home restoration project. With several young children, there was little time to go out to dinner. But when The Tavern closed and the ‘permanently’ sign went up, something stirred in Matt. Never one to back down from a challenge, where others might have seen the ‘permanently closed’ sign as a tombstone, Matt saw it as a dare.
After a year of watching the 174-year-old building fall further into neglect and disrepair, Matt had ‘the talk’ with Maggie.
Maggie: I don’t know why that beautiful building isn’t still a restaurant when all the restaurants around us have full parking lots on weeknights.
Matt: We could do it.
Maggie: Do what?
Matt: We could bring it back.
Maggie: No way. I don’t want that lifestyle. I want to see our kids at night.
Matt: Yea, but what are we teaching them now? Let things fall apart around you and complain about it, or be the kind of people who do something about it?
Maggie: Shoot
The door to Maggie’s heart had been opened. And the path forward was only revealed with each step forward into unknown risks.
Restoration
Some basics had been missing from The Tavern on the Square in all its years of operation. There was no handicap access to the building and there had never been bathrooms on the first floor. Stories have circulated for decades about stopping at a friend’s house in town to use the restroom before going out to dinner…and stopping back afterwards before a long drive home.
The pre-civil war era original staircase was the only way for guests and servers to reach the second floor, both for dining and for the restrooms. Beautiful as they are, something safer was needed to transport hot food and people up and down in the house turned restaurant.
These updates, as well as the discovery that the foundation needed a major lift, led to the scope of the project growing from a quick kitchen remodel to a complete restoration/addition.
Working with several architects and designers including Brett Ligo, Gerry Morosco and Brody Little over the course of six months, a plan was put in place to fuse two very old sagging buildings, add two first floor accessible bathrooms, create three step-less accessible entry points, add an elevator from the back parking lot, gut the kitchen and increase the footprint by 1200 square feet with all new equipment including a wood fire grill and a pizza oven adding a large picture window for staff morale and adding a rooftop terrace for guest appeal.
A project of this scope on a historic site needed a very special contractor. Again, doors opened and T.J. Rollinson of Hermitage, Pennsylvania walked through. Rollinson, along with builder Nate Heckathorn and their crews spent the better part of 2023 and ‘24 at The Tavern on the Square working alongside Matt Noble as they executed the big vision. Decisions were made daily. The restoration seemed to require more thought and time and effort than developing the business plan for the restaurant operation. However, the time finally came to open the cash register and turn the lights back on at the main intersection in a sleepy town.
Revival
Matt and Maggie weren’t ready. The chefs weren’t ready. The servers weren’t ready. But the date was set. The new Tavern on the Square would open its doors on May 22nd, 2024. Final touches and furnishings had to be put aside. They would develop over time, found things, antiques, art…they all seemed like a luxurious use of time with a deadline to open fast approaching. Test-cooking and training had to be the focus.
Beautiful uniforms were ordered and tried on. Chef coats and pants hung on a rack in the basement. Whites. Something special. Culinary. These are not cooks, they are chefs. In order for the business to honor the building restoration, Cora’s legacy and the thousands and thousands of guests special memories, the new version of The Tavern had to be intentional. Care had to be apparent everywhere.
Ready or not, the soft opening happened. There were many speed bumps and dozens of learning opportunities with every table. But there was lift-off.
Farm-to-table mattered to people. Eco efforts like sourcing local proteins from family farmers and sending kitchen compost right back to those farms feels right for everyone.
A New Chapter
The building still sings after nearly 200 years.
The Tavern on the Square has welcomed over 50,000 guests in it’s first year under Matt and Maggie Noble. Pride is there, but not the main motivator. It’s the joy seen on faces as the team gets ready for the day. It’s the families coming together to celebrate big things and small things, like just being together around a table, sharing a good meal. It’s the craft put into treats at the new cocktail bar, one of the best in the region.
And the biggest reward is the attitude of gratitude that pervades the building. The community is grateful. The guests are grateful. The staff is gracious and grateful and Matt and Maggie will be forever grateful to those who have invested resources and talent into doing something special with them. Something that will live on and give life for, hopefully, another hundred years.