WOODCLIFF LAKE—Come on in! Pull up a seat! Merusi’s Tavern was at 62 Broadway at the corner of Lincoln Avenue. The photograph above, from the Pascack Historical Society’s archives, was snapped in January 1941. That’s owners Anna and Emil Merusi at the far right behind the bar.
Emil was born in Italy in 1884 and came to America in 1912. He settled first in New York City, then moved to Woodcliff Lake and lived on Lincoln Avenue. He opened his tavern in the 1930s, and when he retired it passed to his son, Alfred. The Bergen County Sportsmen’s Club would hold an annual venison dinner, as well as a fall turkey shoot, at Merusi’s. The early fire department held events there, too.
This corner restaurant went by many other names over the years. After Merusi’s, in 1971 it switched from Italian food to a seafood shanty with Captain Bligh’s, an English pub with a nautical theme. Within a few years it changed to Rickey T’s Copper Penny and then the Wood-Dale Inn. In 1977 the pub-style restaurant reopened under the name Spanky’s, with “Little Rascals” pictures decorating to the walls. Finally, Matsu, a Japanese restaurant, was there in the 1990s and early 2000s.
The corner of Broadway and Lincoln was then redeveloped as the Woodcliff Lake Commons, a three-story building with businesses at ground level and apartments above.
— Kristin Beuscher is president of the Pascack Historical Society, based in Park Ridge