Klondike Kate’s: a rich history

By Sarah Lipman

Customers patiently wait in line outside to get their hands on the best wings and nachos in Newark. Waiters and hostesses hustle throughout the dimly lit saloon-style restaurant in step with the music playing overhead, tending to the heavy flow of customers. The bartender pours a regular another drink as she spends yet another night at Klondike Kate’s trying to make it on the restaurant’s brass “Wall of Foam.”

All of this seems routine, as if it has been going on forever. However, Kate’s was not always a restaurant and bar for community members and university students to relax in after a tough week of work and classes.

Klondike Kate’s is one of the oldest business locations on Main Street. It has been open for more than 242 years, revamping itself for many different forms of entertainment.

Owner Ken Godwin says Kate’s was first seen on Delaware maps in 1757 as Three Hearts Tavern and later again in 1860 as the Newark Hotel.

“This place has really seen it all and we like to try to keep the 1800s gold-rush feel,” Godwin says. “That’s where the name Klondike Kate’s came from. She was a woman who moved out west.”

He says historically, Kate was either a woman who owned a hotel or a prostitute who owned a brothel. When the Gold Rush hit in the early 1900s, she joined a dance and theater company performing for miners in the Yukon. The name, however, is not original to one woman.

“Anyone named Katherine and moved out west independently probably was called Klondike Kate at the time,” Godwin says. “You’ll get probably four or five different versions of the story.”

Around the turn of the century, Kate’s had already been an exchange store, with places for rent, coffee shops and also a furniture store.

From 1905 to 1915, Kate’s was used as a courtroom and jailhouse known as Squire Lovett’s Courthouse and Jail.

From the side of the building, there were steps leading downstairs to a narrow pathway, in which only one person could walk through at a time. On either side of the walls, there were dark, concrete cells with cold benches and no windows. These cells were covered by a heavy metal door which has to be locked and unlocked with a skeleton key. Across from one of the cells was a window, with a view of a brick wall.

“I never understood why the window was there,” Godwin says. “There was nothing to see other than a wall — that’s even worse than no window at all.”

These cells are still in place today. Lit up with a lantern because there is no electricity or plumbing in the cells, they look just as a dark and punishing as they had in the 1900s.

“The Newark Police actually took one of the doors to use in a historic exhibit about the police department,” Godwin says. “Other than that, they’re still down there — just not on the hinges.”

Sophomore Diane Cerqueira says she can’t imagine Kate’s as a courtroom and jail, but it makes for a really good story.

“It’s really cool to find out the history, but it makes me wonder if the jail is haunted,” Cerqueira says. “I’d be petrified to go downstairs.”

Godwin says after the courtroom, Kate’s became Newark’s roller-skating rink in the 1920s. Due to fires, the woodwork and floors are not from the original rink.

“The lights hanging are from the original Wilmington Train Station and a lot of the stuff hanging on the walls like the mirrors and light fixtures are all originals brought in from antique stores from Philadelphia and New York City,” he says.

Godwin says in 1929, Kate’s was converted to a car business owned by a man named Joe Brown.

“Up until it was converted to a restaurant, in 1979, it was a used-car place,” Godwin says. “There were two antique gas-pumps outside that you can see in a lot of pictures.”

He says a lot of people take Kate’s for granted and did not know that in 1993, the restaurant was almost lost to a huge fire. The building was within minutes of being lost because the roof, which holds the structure together, was completely burned.

“We were actually on ‘Pet Rescue,’ on national television during the fire,” Godwin says. “There was a cat stuck up on the third floor by the window and they rescued it.”

Klondike Kate’s was closed for five months after the fire, he says. The old owner decided to take the time they were closed to remodel the building. All the woodwork was replaced and brought in all the antiques that are seen today.

“It took a while for us to be up and running again,” Godwin says. “The upstairs used to be very small, dingy apartments. We turned it into a banquet hall and brought in antique furniture. Unfortunately, it was trashed after a month so we had to get rid of the furniture.”

He says regulars of Kate’s look forward to being put up on the Wall of Foam, which holds brass plaques of names of regulars.

“People we recognize and request to be put up on the wall can get on the Wall of Foam,” Godwin says. “That in itself is a whole other story. We’ve had ex-boyfriends and girlfriends come in and try to remove someone off the wall. We’ve had to restrain them, or sometimes they actually succeeded.”

There are even Facebook groups about Klondike Kate’s and its prestigious Wall. Groups like, “My life won’t be complete until I’m on the wall of foam at Klondike Kate’s Restaurant and Saloon” give a list of rules and reasons of how to know if you’re a Kate’s addict.

One of the more important rules says, “You know and love the motto, ‘You don’t get on the Wall of Foam by staying at home!’”

Regular Heather Clark says she put that rule to the test and went to Kate’s every weekend, without fail, to get her name engraved on a little brass plaque to be put up on the Wall of Foam.

“My friend’s and I would just go and run up our bar tab,” Clark says. “We made a pact we’d all make it up on the wall before the end of the year and we did it…hundreds of dollars later, but we did it.”

Freshman Michael Geddish admires Clark’s dedication. He says he cannot wait until he’s able to get himself on the Wall of Foam and he’s able to drink at Kate’s.

I’m definitely making it up on the Wall of Foam, it’s such an honor!” he says with a laugh. “I’ll go every night if I have to.”

Godwin says Kate’s has a lot of little known histories that he hopes one day to become part of and has some plans in mind for the future of Klondike Kate’s.

“We’re thinking about opening up the jail cells for dining,” he says. “People have asked us, and it would take a lot of work, but who knows — maybe someday people will be dining in our basement jails.”