Married couple Chelsea and Dave Aron have taken over as the new management team at the Pickwickian Tavern & Smokery in Richland. Their mission is to have the beloved eatery live up to what they see as its untapped potential.
The pair came on board at the Pick in March and since that time they’ve been working to implement some changes.
The menu at the Pickwickian is heavy on the barbecue offerings. They have routinely won awards for their fare, especially for their wings.
“The food has always been a hit there,” said Chelsea Aron, who is heading up the front of house operations at the tavern.
Her husband Dave is the chef overseeing the kitchen, and he said he’s not looking to make major changes to an already popular menu.
“All of our meats are smoked in house,” he said. “Everything’s fresh.”
Changes he has sought to implement have come largely in the form of rotating specials, including the addition of some seafood dishes, which previously hadn’t been on offer at the restaurant.
Thursday nights in particular, when business is often a little slower, Dave said, has provided an opportunity to experiment and try out different recipes and specials.
“So you never know when something’s going to pop up on a Thursday night,” he said.
The chef said other changes have come in the form of making sure as many of their items as possible are all scratch-made, right down to the ranch and blue cheese dressings for those famous wings.
The couple, who were both born and raised in Millville, were married in 2013, and now live in Cedarville, Lawrence Township with their three young children. They were brought in to run the restaurant when their friend Cory Crawford came on as a managing partner in the business.
“When the opportunity presented itself, it almost sounded too good to be true,”said Dave, who has been working in restaurants around the area since he was 15 years old.
Since taking over, Chelsea said there’s been a bit of a misconcepcion among some that they are trying to turn the Pickwickian completely into a nightclub for a strictly younger crowd.
“That’s not the case,” she said. “We love the customers that come in there now. I love an older crowd. However, we don’t have a younger crowd, and I really want it to be a place where everyone wants to come in. I want everyone to feel welcome.”
Dave said the previous management team expressly stated they always thought of the Pickwickian as a restaurant, not as a bar.
“Which is ok, but after those dinner hours are over, there’s still another three, four, sometimes five hours where we can be open later,” he said.
The couple believes they can make the Tavern into a place that serves both functions, increasing revenue for the business while providing a better experience for more customers.
Along with the new food specials formulated by Dave, Chelsea, who you’ll often find working behind the bar, is constantly crafting new drink specials to bring in the crowds.
Entertainment is another draw the couple is looking to ramp up, with live music performances every weekend, along with karaoke and trivia nights.
Other underutilized resources for the business, Chelsea said, are the physical spaces themselves at the Pickwickian, including the outdoor patio area.
“People love sitting outside to have a couple drinks in the spring and summer, so I’ve been working hard at getting that open,” she said.
She also said the tavern has a private upstairs room that can be rented out for private parties.
“It holds just enough people for a beautiful baby shower or a small retirement party,” she said.
One challenge Dave said they’ve had to face since coming on has been the loss of their online presence, which was lost during the management transfer. He said the business currently doesn’t have a website (a new one is in the works), and they lost their Facebook page and its thousands of followers.
“We have to build it back up again,” Dave said, adding that the current Facebook page is where he typically promotes any specials and events they have coming up.
But overall, both Dave and Chelsea said things have been going well with the transition and they’re excited to see what’s to come as they try to strike a balance at the Pick.
“I want it to be a great bar,” Chelsea said. “The older crowd can be in there eating dinner in the dining room, and we can have the younger crowd listening to music and playing cornhole out on the patio.”
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