Jack Delaney’s

The Matchcover Storyteller

OK — first things first. If you have this Jack Delaney Steakhouse matchcover in your sports album because he should be Jack Delaney the championship boxer, you may want to do some editing. This ain’t him!

Our Jack Delany was a breeder of thoroughbred horses at his Del-Briar Farms in North Shrewsbury, New Jersey. It was a prominent facility for raising and keeping racehorses, although I couldn’t find any remarkable achievements by any horses that might have trained there. But while he loved horse with a passion, Jack was a restaurateur.

William Newhouse had erected a Greek Revival structure at 72 Grove Street in lower Manhattan (where Greenwich Village and Sheridan Square meet) in 1842. There is a rich and detailed history of the 21-foot wide structure that includes its use as everything from a saloon to a chair making enterprise. In 1932, it became the Village Grove Restaurant; in 1936, Jack bought it, renovated and opened Jack Delaney’s Restaurant. It soon became a popular destination famous for steaks, but what stood out was the décor derived from Jack’s love of horses. There was a racing sulky hanging from the ceiling. Some of the seating was in the fashion of English riding saddles and in every booth there was a nameplate of one accomplished and famous horse or another.

Lunch in 1939 was 50 cents; writer Jack Kerouac recalls his father taking him there at that time. Meanwhile, Delaney sold his interest in Del-0Briar Farms in 1957. He died in January 1966, age 65. The restaurant continued to thrive into the 1990s before becoming the Sheridan Square Restaurant. If you want to go, that 1842 building is still there, but today it’s a Starbucks.

The cover that started me on this is the Diamond Match 20-strike that probably came out not long after Jack Delaney’s opened. But there have been other, and there are other ephemera including a variety of postcards.