By MARTIN DeANGELIS
Wednesday, January 31, 2007

SOMERS POINT - They had a family reunion Tuesday night on Bay Avenue - for a big, big family. The reunion was at the Anchorage Tavern. And the family was so big because it's an extended one - the Anchorage family.

The Anchorage itself was the reason for the party. The local landmark was serving food and drinks again for the first time since early last September, when an electrical fire did massive damage to the 119-(or-more)-year-old building, one of Atlantic County's oldest businesses.

Part of the family is the Anchorage staff, which owner Don Mahoney says is almost intact from the one he had before the fire. By his count, 80 people worked at the place then, and now, almost five months after he had to put them out of work on no notice, 77 are back.

Part of the family is the customers, but most of them aren't as loyal as Mike and Betty Ann Powell of Ocean City - because it's almost impossible to be that loyal. The Powells say they don't necessarily go to the Anchorage every night for dinner, but any time they don't, they play it safe by calling to tell the hostess they're not coming.

"We don't want them to send the cops out looking for us,."; Mike explained. The Anchorage's Tuesday-night party - like another one scheduled for tonight - wasn't technically supposed to include customers, because Mahoney is honoring a promise to have thank-you parties for "everyone who helped save the place and everyone who helped put it back together..";

Translated, that's two new branches of the Anchorage family, one of them made up of all the emergency crews who showed up at 5 a.m. on a Monday to put out the fire and keep the crowds and streets around the historic building safe. The other is all the cleanup teams and carpenters and electricians and plumbers and engineers and everybody else who brought the place back to life in the months since.

So that explains all the fire-company shirts and jackets in the bar as the party got going, and the number of allRisk logos - worn by workers from the property-restoration company, based in Somerdale, that Mahoney credits with getting his doors open more than four months ahead of schedule. The way he figures it, if everybody who's invited shows up with a guest, he could serve 1,200 non-paying customers by the end of tonight's party.

But the Powells, the dinner regulars from over the bridge, got their ticket to the workers' party because of what they did for the Anchorage family while the bar was closed. They regularly cooked and brought over lunches for the workers, to keep them going on their big job, everything from burgers to trays of lasagna to crock pots of beef stew.

Mahoney jokes that he was shocked to learn that either Powell knew how to cook, given their daily dinner arrangements. But he said seriously that other local people - even some of his competition in Somers Point's eating-and-drinking industry - made it a point to send over lunches during the Anchorage family's sickness and recovery.

Mary Beth Powell explains that she spent decades cooking for a big family, and now that her sons are grown and have their own families, she can't get used to cooking for just two. But her husband adds that part of their reason for bringing the food over was that every time they did, they'd get a tour of progress on the place.

So they saw it from the time most of the building was wrecked by fire, smoke and water through the point when the whole floor had to be ripped up - after engineers discovered that the brick foundation had crumbled to dust, putting the place in danger of collapsing - up to when all the structural work was finished and the Anchorage looked like itself again.

But Tuesday was the first time they'd seen it with all the pictures and decorations and memorabilia back, and Betty Ann swore it was exactly like it used to be.

"That alligator's back up there, right where he belongs,."; she noticed, pointing out a 550-pound cement lizard that hangs from the ceiling over the bar. "And the license plates are back up,."; she added, pointing to a collection of novelty plates near the alligator. "And they're in the right order! That's amazing..";

The world was also in the exact right order for Linda Conroy, an 11-year veteran who splits her time between the office and the hostess station. She couldn't get the smile off her face once it became clear that the front doors of the Anchorage really were about to swing open again.

And everything was right again for veteran waitresses Renee Thoensen and Desiree Santora and Marcy Kopp, three of a crew of about 25, Kopp figures, more than half of them with at least 10 years in at the place.

"He keeps taking me back,."; is how Santora explains her longevity in the family, after she made moves to Maryland for college and to Hawaii afterward - and now back to the bar where she started working 12 years ago.

Kopp is in her last semester at Richard Stockton College of New Jersey and she thanks the Anchorage for her lack of student loans - except for this year, when she had to go on unemployment after the fire.

"There are a couple girls who put themselves through nursing school, but they still come back,."; says Kopp, who hopes to become a teacher herself - and to work at the Anchorage in her summers.

The Anchorage family includes Mahoney's smaller family, like his brother, Jim - who also manages the business - and their mother, Virginia, who at age 83 helps keep the books and makes sure all the numbers add up.

And this family reunion was scheduled to include an appearance by a Mummers-type string band, which was set to strut up Bay Avenue after dark and welcome the Anchorage back to Somers Point in style.

Hey, in this town - and for this extended family - this is a big occasion, and great reason for a parade.

Then again, so is Thursday morning, when the Anchorage Tavern is scheduled to open for regular business again.

To e-mail Martin DeAngelis at The Press:
MDeangelis@pressofac.com

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