Belleview Inn

The Belleview Inn at 2001 Broadway sat adjacent to the Howland Croft & Sons Company mill and diagonally across Broadway from American Legion Memorial Post 274. In past years it was a popular spot, profiting both from its location on Broadway and from its location in a neighborhood filled with workers from the New York Shipbuilding Corporation, McAndrews & Forbes, Eavenson & Levering, and the old Camden Brewery, and other Camden factories. Its history is tied to that of 699 Central Avenue, popularly known for most of the last 70 years as Nick and Sophie’s Tavern.

2001 Broadway was operating as a saloon as early as 1918. In that year a 32-year-old widow named Amelia Harle was renting the building and operating the saloon. Peter and Kathryn Koszarecki, who had both emigrated to America from Poland as teenagers, were living at and operating the bar at 2001 Broadway in late 1920 or early 1921. The Koszareckis had three daughters, Viola, Clara and Sophie, and a son, Alexander, at the time of the 1930 Census.

The bar was called the Mill Inn in 1934, a name that probably dates back to the bar’s original opening, referring to its location next to Howland Croft. In later years this bar was known as the Belleview Inn. Peter Koszarecki soon became the owner of the bar after 1930, and shortly thereafter acquired an interest in 699 Central Avenue. Sophie Koszarecki married Nicholas Domenices.

According to Sophie’s obituary, Peter Koszarecki acquired the bar at 699 Central Avenue in 1934. The bar was licensed to and listed in City Directories in the late 1930s and 1940 under the name of Peter Kucharski, a relative who lived with the Koszarecki family over the bar at 2001 Broadway. Kucharski passed away in November of 1940. In 1947 the bar appears in the Camden City Directory as Nick’s Cafe, and in the New Jersey Bell Telephone Directories of the 1950s and 1960s as Domenice’s Tavern. Since the 1970s the listing has been as Nick and Sophie’s Tavern.

Nick and Sophie are well remembered in Camden as the proprietors of Nick and Sophie’s Tavern at 699 Central Avenue, in the Centerville section of Camden. The bar still bears their name, as does Central Avenue between Master and South 10th Streets in Camden.

It is unclear as to when the Koszarecki family ended their involvement with the bar at 2001 Broadway. The bar first appears in the New Jersey Bell Telephone Directories as the Belleview Inn during the 1950s. Peter Koszarecki died in 1964. In 1967 Alexander Koszarecki, representing the estate of Peter Koszarecki, applied for the liquor license renewal. The Belleview Inn remained open into the late 1990s. The building has since been used as a private residence.