From 1920 through 1933, the 18th Amendment criminalized the sale, manufacture and transportation of alcoholic beverages. Though Prohibition — also known as the Noble Experiment — did little to curb America’s alcohol consumption, it did require bar owners and patrons alike to get a lot more creative.
Regular folks started making their own liquors at home — liquors of such poor quality (often known as bathtub gin or rotgut) they had to be mixed with fruit juice and sugar water to make them drinkable. Out of this impromptu mad science came the origins of what we consider today to be a mixed drink. These drinks were sold in speakeasies, bars that went to great lengths to make themselves look like anything other than bars. As a result, 1920 witnessed an unprecedented upswing in all-night and oddly raucous pet shops, hardware stores and funeral parlors.
I start my review of Tony’s SpeakEasy in downtown Barberton with a history lesson because that’s what owner Tony Petit inadvertently did when he first opened his doors in 2005. In those early days, Petit found himself explaining to his patrons what a speakeasy was far more often than he expected to.
“I thought that was History 101,” said Petit.
Though it’s not what he set out to do, Petit has established himself as a professor of sorts, reeducating a public too accustomed to settling for less when spending a night out. In fact, much of what the place does well falls under the category of dying arts. That a well-crafted mixed drink is a time-honored poetry and not what you get when you drop a shot into a pint of beer. That good service isn’t getting the patrons what they want in a timely manner, it’s getting them what they want before they know they want it. That bar food does not get its name by how low the bar can be set.
In every quantifiable way, places like Tony’s SpeakEasy are exceptions that prove disheartening rules. Thankfully, no one’s told Petit that yet.
“Most people are amazed by how many liquors I have behind the bar, and that’s not even the tip of the iceberg,” he said.
It’s no surprise that boasting one of the area’s most comprehensive liquor selections, if not the most comprehensive, isn’t good enough for Petit. Nor is taking for granted the decades he’s spent honing his craft. On the off chance that Petit is stumped by a drink order, just below that vast cache of bottles behind the bar is literally a library of drink recipe texts, some dating as far back as the dark ages of Prohibition.
The same degree of thoughtfulness and attention to detail is applied to the menu. While the bulk remains static year round — punctuated by standouts such as the crabcake salad and a closely guarded buffalo-wing recipe — the specials menu is perpetually at the mercy of Petit’s creativity. Perhaps the board near the front door will list maple-glazed pork chop. Perhaps jalapeno lasagna. It’s impossible to say what it’ll be on any given day, but the rapport Petit shares with his customers includes a well-earned trust. And for the uninitiated, taking a chance on whatever the board reads that day is usually where a new trust begins.
Sometimes the value of an idea is not how it changes the world, but how it takes the best from a world gone by. A time of dolled-up women and men wearing hats and ties, even if it was only to spend an evening at their neighborhood watering hole. A time when bartenders took the time to learn your first name. A time when the service was so good it can only be described as choreography. A time when a burger was never just a burger and drink was never just a drink.
These might be myths. The world was maybe never really like that. But the myths are alive and well in downtown Barberton.
With a deep appreciation for a time when bar owners and restaurateurs were willing to become criminals to make their patrons happy, it’s Petit himself who makes Tony’s Speakeasy so special, and his readiness to do more, to provide his patrons with more than they expect. And as the Hooterization of America steadily replaces Billy Joel’s “quick with a joke or to light up your smoke” bartender with 23-year-old girls who confuse a wink and smile with a basic understanding of mixology, what Tony’s SpeakEasy offers is perhaps more than contemporary patrons feel they are entitled to.
In this way, Tony’s SpeakEasy not only pays homage to the time known as the Noble Experiment — it is, in its own way, a noble experiment.
Tony’s SpeakEasy in Barberton is open Tuesday through Saturday from 5 p.m. on.
