In addition to opening his bar only every Friday for much of its existence, he allows patrons to make their own
drinks, recites Shakespeare and Beckett, greets the very
occasional new patrons of his bar as close friends, sings, paints, kayaks in New York Harbor, and tells captivating stories of life in wartime Red Hook
among the mobsters and war heroes who frequented what was once his grandfather's bar before it became his father's, and then his.