AN ICONIC 4-LANER — A FORMER SPEAKEASY — PREPARING TO CLOSE

The year was 1929.

The United States was nine years into what clearly was becoming a failed social experiment known as Prohibition.

In New Jersey, on the town line between Paterson and Clifton, a new business opened. It featured four bowling lanes, and beer was sold covertly out of buckets of ice.

By definition, that made it a speakeasy.

As was the case in 1929, lots of people were just looking the other way, as efforts to repeal the 18th amendment to the U.S. Constitution were gaining steam.

That business, known as Paul’s Bar and Bowling, survived the waning years of Prohibition, The Great Depression, World War II and The Great Recession. It even has survived the COVID-19 pandemic.

But it could not survive an owner who simply is ready to call it a career. The center, featured on a 2014 episode of “Restaurant Impossible,” hosted by Robert Irvine, will close in September.

Read more about the 91-year-old business and the owner’s decision here: https://www.northjersey.com/story/news/passaic/paterson/2020/08/20/pauls-bar-and-bowling-paterson-nj-close-after-91-years/5617727002/.