CAMDEN BARS - Joe's Bar

The bar at 2277 South 7th Street was operated by John W. Pearson, according to the Camden City Directory for 1918-1919 at the time Prohibition was enacted.

John W. Pearson appears to have been born in Delaware in 1882. He seems to have gotten out of the saloon business after the 1919 enactment of Prohibition, and moved to 1203 Locust Street. He was then working as a foreman in a bottling business.

The 1931 Camden City Directory shows Frank Casper & Chester Czereszkowski operating a "soft drinks" business there.

Chester Czereszkowski was born in Poland in 1894, and was living in Camden at the time of the 1930 Census.

A liquor license was obtained after the 1933 repeal, and Nancy Drogo was reported as the licensee in the Camden Courier-Post in June of 1939.

Nancy Drogo appeared in the 1930 Census. The 21 years old, she was married to Tony Drogo, a truck driver, and lived at 328 Evans Street in Camden's Third Ward with their two son, Tony and Paul. The Drogo family appears to have left Camden by 1947.

The 1940 Camden City Directory lists a Katherine Liparota as the proprietress. By 1947 she and her husband Patrick had moved to East Camden, where they operated the Liparota Sweet Shop at 3506 Westfield Avenue. Mr. and Mrs. Liparota were no longer living in Camden County by 1959.

In 1943, the Camden City Directory states that Joseph Wisniewski was operating the bar at 2277 South 7th Street, on the corner of 7th and Woodland Avenue, a few short blocks south of his previous location. Joseph S. Wisniewski had owned and operated the Jefferson House saloon at 7th & Jefferson Streets in Camden's 8th Ward in as early as 1918 and as late as 1931. As Joe's Bar, the establishment remained in business through the early 1974.

Joseph Wisniewski was living in Stratford NJ in 1967. By 1977 the bar no longer appeared in the New Jersey Bell Telephone Directory Yellow Pages. The building that was Joe's Bar has been vacant for many years, and stands empty and boarded up in 2003.