Black Horse Tavern & Pub
Mendham, New Jersey · Colonial America · Est. 1742 · Open today
Since 1742
Ebenezer Byram, credited as a founding father of Mendham, opened the Black Horse in 1742 after moving his wife and eight children from Massachusetts, and it is widely cited as New Jersey's oldest continually running restaurant. Anthony Knapp owned it for about 40 years before selling in 2007 to Mendham brothers Anthony and Biagio Scotto of 40North Restaurant Group. In March 2024 the property closed for multimillion-dollar renovations covering structural work, the kitchen, and the dining rooms. A Labor Day 2024 fire, which started in a wall between the basement and first floor, damaged the building mid-renovation but did not derail the project. The Pub reopened on January 13, 2025, while restoration of the fire-damaged historic Tavern side was slated to begin afterward as its own phase.
A 4 a.m. Labor Day 2024 fire tore through the building in the middle of its big renovation — yet the nearly-300-year-old Pub still reopened just over four months later, in January 2025.
How solid is the claim?
New Jersey’s oldest bar — the evidence
Black Horse Tavern & Pub in Mendham is our featured pick for the oldest bar in New Jersey, with a claimed founding year of 1742. The 1742 founding is well documented and NJ Monthly and others consistently call it New Jersey's oldest continually running restaurant. But for the 'oldest bar' title specifically, the Barnsboro Inn (log-cabin building from 1720, licensed as a tavern in 1776) is named New Jersey's oldest bar/tavern by several state roundups, and the Black Horse's 2024-25 closure and fire add a recent continuity footnote.
Competing Claims
Other New Jersey establishments with a stake in the title:
Sources
- 1. NJ's Oldest Restaurant Enters a New Era After Multimillion-Dollar Renovations — New Jersey Monthly
- 2. NJ fire: Nearly 300-year-old Black Horse Tavern and Pub in Mendham damaged by fire — ABC7 New York
- 3. NJ's Oldest Restaurant Set To Reopen This Month In Mendham — Patch
- 4. The Black Horse Tavern & Pub (official site)
- 5. The Barnsboro Inn — The Oldest Bar In New Jersey — PhillyBite