{"id":465027,"date":"2022-06-18T22:35:18","date_gmt":"2022-06-18T19:35:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/my-dad-bought-a-bar-and-turned-it-into-our-american-dream\/"},"modified":"2022-06-18T22:35:18","modified_gmt":"2022-06-18T19:35:18","slug":"my-dad-bought-a-bar-and-turned-it-into-our-american-dream","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/my-dad-bought-a-bar-and-turned-it-into-our-american-dream\/","title":{"rendered":"#My dad bought a bar and turned it into our American dream"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"ez-toc-container\" class=\"ez-toc-v2_0_85 counter-hierarchy ez-toc-counter ez-toc-custom ez-toc-container-direction\">\n<p class=\"ez-toc-title\" style=\"cursor:inherit\">Table of Contents<\/p>\n<label for=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-item-6a3ab77a25c70\" class=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-label\"><span class=\"\"><span class=\"eztoc-hide\" style=\"display:none;\">Toggle<\/span><span class=\"ez-toc-icon-toggle-span\"><svg style=\"fill: #dd3333;color:#dd3333\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" class=\"list-377408\" width=\"20px\" height=\"20px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" fill=\"none\"><path d=\"M6 6H4v2h2V6zm14 0H8v2h12V6zM4 11h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2zM4 16h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2z\" fill=\"currentColor\"><\/path><\/svg><svg style=\"fill: #dd3333;color:#dd3333\" class=\"arrow-unsorted-368013\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" width=\"10px\" height=\"10px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" version=\"1.2\" baseProfile=\"tiny\"><path d=\"M18.2 9.3l-6.2-6.3-6.2 6.3c-.2.2-.3.4-.3.7s.1.5.3.7c.2.2.4.3.7.3h11c.3 0 .5-.1.7-.3.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7zM5.8 14.7l6.2 6.3 6.2-6.3c.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7c-.2-.2-.4-.3-.7-.3h-11c-.3 0-.5.1-.7.3-.2.2-.3.5-.3.7s.1.5.3.7z\"\/><\/svg><\/span><\/span><\/label><input type=\"checkbox\"  id=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-item-6a3ab77a25c70\" checked aria-label=\"Toggle\" \/><nav><ul class='ez-toc-list ez-toc-list-level-1 ' ><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-1'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-1\" href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/my-dad-bought-a-bar-and-turned-it-into-our-american-dream\/#%E2%80%9CMy_dad_bought_a_bar_and_turned_it_into_our_American_dream%E2%80%9D\" >&#8220;My dad bought a bar and turned it into our American dream&#8221;<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/nav><\/div>\n<h1><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"%E2%80%9CMy_dad_bought_a_bar_and_turned_it_into_our_American_dream%E2%80%9D\"><\/span>&#8220;My dad bought a bar and turned it into our American dream&#8221;<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h1>\n<div>\n<aside class=\"single__inline-module alignleft\">\n<\/aside>\n<p>My father didn\u2019t become himself until the age of 50. That\u2019s when he became his own boss.<\/p>\n<p>Ten years earlier, around the time I was born in 1973, my dad got a good job with the local county government, running a youth shelter. He had been a high-school football star and was voted class clown by his peers. He was a well-loved local guy. This made him the right person for a government job that seemed like a plum.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>But it wasn\u2019t all <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/social-mediaa\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"1\" title=\"Social Media\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">social<\/a> work. There was politics involved.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>My dad was a Democrat in a county run by Republicans, and he couldn\u2019t help getting mixed up in personality conflicts and turf wars. Counseling teenagers at the shelter was nothing compared with the constant anxiety that some power-mad Little Napoleon was going to take my dad\u2019s job away.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Eventually the inevitable h<a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/download-scripts-themes-apps\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"9\" title=\"Download Scripts &amp; Themes &amp; Apps\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">app<\/a>ened. My dad rubbed the wrong person the wrong way and, according to his telling, was forced out just a few months shy of qualifying for a county pension. It was a dirty business, and happy-go-lucky as my dad was, he held a quiet grudge for the rest of his life.<\/p>\n<p>Suddenly my parents were in a tight spot. With four children, and the oldest creeping up on college age, the wolf was at the door. The only income my dad could rely on was the moonlighting money he\u2019d been picking up bartending once or twice a week at a little joint under the train trestle in our town of Morristown, NJ.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"682\" src=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/06\/matthew-hennessey-father.jpg?w=1024\" alt=\"After getting sacked from his government job, Matthew Hennessey\u2019s father Jim had one last chance to start over \u2014 so he bought a pub, and it was the making of him.\" class=\"wp-image-22690413\" srcset=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/06\/matthew-hennessey-father.jpg?quality=75&amp;strip=all&amp;w=1535 1536w, https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/06\/matthew-hennessey-father.jpg?quality=75&amp;strip=all 1024w, https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/06\/matthew-hennessey-father.jpg?quality=75&amp;strip=all&amp;w=512 512w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\"\/><figcaption>After getting sacked from his government job, Matthew Hennessey\u2019s father Jim had one last chance to start over \u2014 so he bought a pub, and it was the making of him.<\/figcaption><figcaption><span class=\"credit\">Courtesy of Matthew Hennessey<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>My dad needed a job, and not just any job. Whatever happened next would likely be his last chance to start over. It was a dramatic moment, of the sort that only happens once or twice in a person\u2019s life.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>When my parents sat me and my siblings down at the kitchen table in February 1983, I expected to hear the worst \u2014 they were splitting up or we were all getting shipped off to boarding school. The <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/news\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"2\" title=\"News\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">news<\/a> was less dramatic: \u201cWe bought the bar.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It seemed a momentous thing for our family. As I understood it, we were employees, hired hands and hourly workers. But now dad was going to be the boss. Even if I didn\u2019t fully understand what it meant, I liked the sound of it. I think he did too.<\/p>\n<p>It must have been a powerful feeling on that first day, unlocking the front door and stepping inside the bar \u2014 now christened Hennessey\u2019s \u2014 as its new owner. In keeping with a long tradition, the first dollar spent by a paying customer wasn\u2019t put in the cash register but was framed and hung in a visible location.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1024\" height=\"682\" src=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/06\/matthew-hennessey.jpg?w=1024\" alt=\"Writer Matthew Hennessey remembers Hennessey's in Morristown, NJ, as &quot;a gathering place&quot; that vaulted his parents into the middle class.\" class=\"wp-image-22690437\" srcset=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/06\/matthew-hennessey.jpg?quality=75&amp;strip=all&amp;w=1535 1536w, https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/06\/matthew-hennessey.jpg?quality=75&amp;strip=all 1024w, https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/06\/matthew-hennessey.jpg?quality=75&amp;strip=all&amp;w=512 512w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\"\/><figcaption>Writer Matthew Hennessey remembers Hennessey\u2019s in Morristown, NJ, as \u201ca gathering place\u201d that vaulted his parents into the middle class.<\/figcaption><figcaption><span class=\"credit\">Stephen Yang for NY Post<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Every time you visit a dry cleaner, hardware store or bar and you see one of those dollar bills on the wall you are seeing a memorial to risk, a down payment on a dream fulfilled. The ones at Hennessey\u2019s looked to me like the American flag that Armstrong and Aldrin left on the moon. They said, \u201cSomething happened here because somebody dared to make it so.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The truth is my parents took the risk out of necessity. Given the choice, my father would have stayed in the county job until he retired, but he wasn\u2019t given the choice. Sometimes people say that being fired was the best thing that ever happened to them. It always sounds great because what comes next is the story of unlikely success.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Often left out is the fear and desperation, the frightening reality of deciding to go all-in, to put all your chips on No. 1, to close your eyes and spin the wheel as hard as you can. My parents needed to place a big bet on themselves and the bar provided them the opportunity to do it.<\/p>\n<p>Business didn\u2019t take off right away, but as the \u201980s wore on things started to shift. A younger crowd began to develop. In the \u201990s, the big night of the week at Hennessey\u2019s became every night.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1024\" height=\"682\" src=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/06\/colleen-hennessey.jpg?w=1024\" alt=\"Matthew's sister Colleen Hasson has proudly displayed the sign for Hennessey's on her deck in Morristown, NJ, since 2012 when her parents sold the bar.\" class=\"wp-image-22690462\" srcset=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/06\/colleen-hennessey.jpg?quality=75&amp;strip=all&amp;w=1535 1536w, https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/06\/colleen-hennessey.jpg?quality=75&amp;strip=all 1024w, https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/06\/colleen-hennessey.jpg?quality=75&amp;strip=all&amp;w=512 512w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\"\/><figcaption>Matthew\u2019s sister Colleen Hasson has proudly displayed the sign for Hennessey\u2019s on her deck in Morristown, NJ, since 2012, when her parents sold the bar.<\/figcaption><figcaption><span class=\"credit\">Stephen Yang for NY Post<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The bar was a gathering place. People came to lift a glass in exultation after a softball <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/game\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"7\" title=\"Game\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">game<\/a>, a college graduation or a long week at work.\u00a0Hennessey\u2019s became a town square, a communal living room with my dad at the center, holding court, cracking wise, lifting spirits, and doing what he always wanted to do with his life \u2014 put a little light into a dark and dreary world.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The bar gave my dad the chance to become himself. It also turned into a real moneymaker. My parents had both grown up poor. The bar\u2019s success pulled them solidly into the middle class. They had the means to send their kids to college and take relaxing vacations of the sort their own parents could never have dreamed possible.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The miracle of the market meant that my parents\u2019 success contributed to the success of a constellation of other local businesses. The beer distributor, the jukebox man and the guy who came to sharpen the kitchen knives thrived when Hennessey\u2019s did well. So did the landlord, the insurance company, and the taxman.\u00a0<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"682\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/06\/jim-ann-hennessey.jpg?w=682\" alt=\"Entrepreneurship allowed Jim and Ann Hennessey to send their kids to college and take the kind of vacations their own parents could never have dreamed possible.\" class=\"wp-image-22690484\" srcset=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/06\/jim-ann-hennessey.jpg?quality=75&amp;strip=all&amp;w=1023 1023w, https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/06\/jim-ann-hennessey.jpg?quality=75&amp;strip=all&amp;w=682 682w, https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/06\/jim-ann-hennessey.jpg?quality=75&amp;strip=all&amp;w=341 341w, https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/06\/jim-ann-hennessey.jpg?quality=75&amp;strip=all 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 682px) 100vw, 682px\"\/><figcaption>Entrepreneurship allowed Jim and Ann Hennessey to send their kids to college and take the kind of vacations their own parents could never have dreamed possible.<\/figcaption><figcaption><span class=\"credit\">Courtesy of Matthew Hennessey<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Eventually my parents sold their old house on a busy road and decamped for the tranquility of the countryside. My mother spent her final years puttering around in a biggish flower garden. My dad loved nothing more than to sit on his spacious and well-shaded deck with a book on his lap as he dozed to the sounds of the forest.<\/p>\n<p>Only in hindsight can I see how their life\u2019s work was accomplished, how they built a good thing and sustained it even as it sustained them and a great many people who came into contact with it. My parents owned a business but they didn\u2019t consider themselves businesspeople.<\/p>\n<p>Then again, everyone is in business, as legendary Wall Street Journal editor Barney Kilgore liked to say \u2014 the business of making a living.<\/p>\n<p><em>Matthew Hennessey is the Wall Street Journal\u2019s deputy op-ed editor and author of \u201cVisible Hand: A Wealth of Notions on the Miracle of the Market,\u201d from which this essay is adapted.<\/em>\n                        <\/div>\n<blockquote><p><strong><span style=\"color: #ff6600;\">If you liked the article, do not forget to share it with your friends. Follow us on\u00a0<span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><a style=\"color: #ff0000;\" href=\"https:\/\/news.google.com\/publications\/CAAqBwgKMLG0nwswvr63Aw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">Google News<\/a><\/span>\u00a0too, click on the star and choose us from your favorites.<\/span><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">For forums sites go to <span style=\"color: #ff9900;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/forum.buradabiliyorum.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Forum.BuradaBiliyorum.Com<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>If you want to read more News articles, you can visit our <span style=\"color: #ff9900;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/news\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">News category.<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"color: black;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2022\/06\/18\/my-dad-bought-a-bar-and-turned-it-into-our-american-dream\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Source<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;My dad bought a bar and turned it into our American dream&#8221; My father didn\u2019t become himself until the age of 50. That\u2019s when he became his own boss. Ten years earlier, around the time I was born in 1973, my dad got a good job with the local county government, running a youth shelter&#8230;.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":465028,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/06\/matthew-hennessey-bar.jpg?quality=75&strip=all&w=1024","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[70897],"tags":[130472,71155,71290,73007,108381,71083],"class_list":["post-465027","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-6-18-22","tag-bars","tag-economics","tag-entrepreneurs","tag-fathers-day","tag-small-business"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/465027","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=465027"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/465027\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/465028"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=465027"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=465027"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=465027"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}