In what was once the “last great frontier in New York City,” a German-themed pub and restaurant thrives anew

by Jessica Jones-Gorman • Photos: By Vinnie Amessé © www.amessephoto.com

After opening Adobe Blues in 1992 and finding success with the Old West saloon on the North Shore of Staten Island, Ken Tirado and Jim Stayoch decided that as restaurateurs, they were ready to experiment with another location, but that their next endeavor should be categorically different.
So, they scouted out the 50-year-old Century Inn on Arthur Kill Road in Charleston and tried to convince the owning Simonson family to sell.

“This building had been owned and operated by the family since the end of World War II, and everyone thought they would never sell it,” noted Tirado. “But the reality was that Cappy Simonson was getting older and his children didn’t want anything to do with the business. At the time, Mayor Giuliani was doing all of that rezoning, getting rid of the adult industry in Times Square and placing all of the go-go bars in the industrial corners of each borough.”

When the Mayor designated Charleston as Staten Island’s hub for topless bars and other unsavory commerce, Simonson was inundated by bar owners who wanted to turn his historic Century Inn into a strip club…among other things.

“He obviously wanted no part of that,” Tirado said. “So when we approached with the idea of turning the Inn into a family-style restaurant that would also hearken back to the German origins of this neighborhood, Cappy was thrilled.”

Tirado and Stayoch purchased the centuries-old site and renamed it Killmeyer’s Old Bavaria Inn.

“We wanted to use the name Killmeyer’s because in our research, we found that Balthazar Kreischer sold this property to Nicolas Killmeyer around 1855,” Tirado said. “The next generation of Killmeyers expanded the original building, built the upstairs hotel, and commissioned the beautiful mahogany bar in 1890. The Simonson family then bought the building from the Killmeyer heirs in 1945. It was known as Rube’s until the 1950s, when Cappy decided that it would be better off called The Century Inn. When we bought and restored it in 1995, we thought it would be appropriate to return the building to its roots.”

And what roots it had. Rumored to have been built sometime in the early 1700s, the bar is considered to be the oldest pub on Staten Island, and among the oldest in the nation. According to
Tirado, it is also the last remaining evidence of what used to be a thriving German factory town, once full of breweries and beer halls.

“Almost two centuries later, there were no German restaurants left on Staten Island where a once-thriving German culture dominated,” Tirado said. “If you wanted German food, you had to drive to Queens or New Jersey. Our goal was to bring it back to the borough.”

So, Tirado and Stayoch staged a major renovation, stripping back layers of linoleum and removing a drop ceiling to reveal the building’s former glory.

“Truth is, when The Century Inn was in its heyday, it was a sort of rock-and-roll roadhouse,” Tirado said. “So all of the beautiful tin ceilings were covered up with sound equipment and acoustic drop ceilings. We wanted the space to look like it did in the 19th century, so we excavated like an archeologist would—ripping up generations of linoleum and uncovering beautiful maple floors. We also discovered a beautiful brick fireplace that had been covered up with sheet rock, took down the chicken wire from the windows, and turned the whole place back into a beautiful tavern.”

The menu became a representation of authentic German cuisine, highlighted by wiener schnitzel, sauerbraten, and potato pancakes. (“We found that the classic meat-and-potato basics of German food was just what our clients wanted to order,” Tirado said.)

When it came to selecting beer varieties, the owners took a cue from their other successful establishment, Adobe Blues.

“Adobe easily had the largest selection of beer on Staten Island, which was a pretty easy task 23 years ago,” Tirado said with a smile. “The average Island bar then was so far from the rest of the city when it came to craft beer. If you had 15 different brands, that was big here. I think at Adobe, our list got up to 225 at one point, so when we opened Killmeyer’s, we took that same idea and just added all of the fine and most unique German and Belgian beers we could find. That was fun.”

The partners eventually parted ways: Tirado taking the reins at Killmeyer’s, while Stayoch stayed at Adobe. And though the menu has remained meat-and-potatoes and the beer menu still features hundreds of choices, the proprietor said that much has changed at the Charleston tavern.

“Twenty years ago, and with no exaggeration, it was common to hear the clip-clop of horses going by because of all the stables nearby,” Tirado said. “And all up and down Sharrots Road and Arthur Kill Road, some bars still had hitching posts,” adding that at present, all of that real estate has been developed and the stables torn down and sold, making the “last frontier of New York City” much more populated, though inherently less unique.

“In many ways it has been good for business,” Tirado said. “Twenty years ago, we were a destination so far off the beaten path. People would plan a trip to Killmeyer’s; we weren’t just a drop-in neighborhood pub. But now there’s a neighborhood with 75 townhouses and people living within walking distance.”

The bar hosts entertainment each weekend, and the Beer Garden is open from May to October. “We just celebrated our 20th year in business, and after two decades, I think we still offer something distinctive in the restaurant culture,” Tirado concluded. “In a city of sameness, it’s a thrill to be…an adventure of sorts.”

Killmeyer’s Old Bavaria Inn
4254 Arthur Kill Road / 718.984.1202
killmeyers.com