Go Local! | Tessie’s Fairgrounds Hotel
Tessie’s Fairgrounds Hotel, opening a mere seven weeks ago, is a homey, Victorian bar and restaurant located at 448 N. 17th St. With a menu that includes eight flavors of wings, a Kobe beef burger, and crab cake sliders with housemade saffron tartar sauce, Tessie’s doesn’t default to typical pub grub. Plus the place has a full banquet hall and catering services.
Formerly Bar Cibi, Tessie’s is owned by West End native Robbie Stephens. It is the third restaurant Stephens has opened; his other two restaurants were the former Jelly Beans in Allentown and the Orchard Restaurant in Orefield. Tessie’s, named after Stephens’ late wife’s grandmother, Theresa Timar, promises “good quality food with a good bar to the people of the West End.”
Stephens grew up three blocks from Tessie’s, but only recently moved back to the West End. “The West End is home to me. I am rebuilding life where I learned how to live,” said Stephens. He has worked in the West End since age 15 at Wert’s Café, the MainGate, and, interestingly enough, The Fairgrounds Hotel and Saloon. Through his work experience and frequenting the West End’s taverns, Stephens gained an appreciation and connection to the West End Theatre District.
“The West End provides businesses with a lot of personality and familiar faces. People are loyal to their area,” he said. Stephens said he wants to watch the area grow and evolve. When he is working he feels amongst friends. “It is like I have the history of a 60-some-year-old even though I am in my 40s. I just know so many faces that frequent the local businesses and live in the area,” he said.
Stephens said he couldn’t ask for better people to be supporting Tessie’s and has been warmly welcomed back to his home in the West End. “It is easy to say that the greatest people on earth pass through our doors everyday,” he said.
—By Kelsey Bonsell
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