A Legacy in Every Bite
Crane’s Tavern has long been the old-school favorite of steak lovers, and the story of the family behind it might just be the best seasoning of all. BY BARRY KAUFMAN
•
PHOTOS BY ROB KAUFMAN
If there’s any indication of what Frank Crane saw when his 13-year-old eyes beheld America for the first time, it’s been lost to history. Traveling on his own from his native Ireland, he was one drop in a flood of Emerald Isle immigrants taking their chances on the new world. We don’t know much about his arrival, but we do know this – in his young heart beat a passion that would become a legacy, stretching from that turn-of-the-century port to the suburbs of Philadelphia, the shores of Long Beach Island, New Jersey, and finally South to Hilton Head Island nearly 25 years ago. Just five years after landing on our shores, the 18-year-old Crane had opened the restaurant that would bear his name (albeit, as Crane’s Old English Tavern, owing to the prevailing bigotry against the Irish at the time). Located in the heart of Philadelphia, this tavern quickly became not just a vital meeting spot for the City of Brotherly Love, it launched a family legacy now four generations strong. Frank would keep the original Crane’s Tavern running through prohibition (at least in spirit. Like so many tavern keepers of the time who saw their livelihood criminalized overnight, he spent our long national nightmare as a bootlegger). After that, his sons would open Crane’s Tavern in Germantown, which is where Hank Crane, the third generation of American Cranes, enters the picture. “Believe it or not, his first bartending job was not for my grandfather,” said Beth Crane, 14
TASTEOFHILTONHEAD.COM