Like many people who have worked in the industry but then changed careers, we—Ashley and Marc Pietrzykowski—looked back on our time in bars and restaurants fondly, and talked often about opening our own place and getting back to it. So, being slightly crazy*, we did. The galaxy needs more neighborhood joints, more Mom and Pop places and fewer that were designed in a boardroom, and this is our small contribution toward that goal. Except in this case, Mom and Pop are old punk rockers.
Sharing drinks and food is something like an act of worship for us, a way to give thanks to the world and existence in the company of other people—and, if we can make a modest living doing so, even better. So, we bought a bar and grill called Josie’s Place and renamed it Hawley’s Grove, after Jesse Hawley, a flour merchant who, in 1807, found himself in debtor’s prison when he could not get his grain to New York’s Western frontier. While in prison, he wrote a series of essays, under the pen name Hercules, trying to convince others that digging canal from the Hudson River to Lake Erie was a good idea. These essays managed to sway DeWitt Clinton, Governor of New York, and so the canal was dug, and five locks were built to help barges up and down the Niagara Escarpment, and thus the city of Lockport rose from the mud. Mr. Hawley is buried in Lockport, in Cold Spring Cemetery, and we hope his spirit comes to our tavern once in a while to join in the good cheer.
*some might argue about the use of slightly here.