Nick's Seafood Pavilion
Water Street, Yorktown, VA 23692

(Red Star is misplaced on map.)
THEN:
		1957	1963
Courtesy of Dave Spriggs ('64) of VA - 01/12/04 Thanks, Dave!	Courtesy of Dave Spriggs ('64) of VA - 01/31/04 Thanks, Dave!	I thought that I had already sent you this, but it is not on the Nick's page ... so here it is: Love the Caddy ............. - Dave Spriggs ('64) of VA - 05/19/04 OOOPS!  You did, Dave - on 04/29/04 - Sorry!  Thanks again!	04/13/04
	02/01/04	Courtesy of Dave Spriggs ('64) of VA -08/16/05 Thanks, Dave	Courtesy of Dave Spriggs ('64) of VA -07/13/04 Thanks, Dave!

NICK'S ON THE BLOCK

Art, memorabilia from restaurant auctioned off

By Judith Haynes, Daily Press, January 18, 2004


YORK -- There seemed to be something for everyone Saturday at the auction of items from Nick's Seafood Pavilion.
Not that everyone got what they wanted.

Hundreds crowded into a warehouse at Victory Industrial Park to see mementos, kitchenware,
furnishings and decorative objects go on the block.

The total take, said auctioneer Larry Makowski of Express Auction, was between $200,000 and $250,000.
An auction Friday of kitchen equipment from the landmark restaurant that fed locals and travelers
for 60 years brought in $9,000.

The money will go to York County, which bought the riverfront property and will build a parking deck there.

Winston Collins of Newport News had his eye on a bronze sculpture of a woman.
He wanted it to go with a pair of figural oil lamps that he bought at an earlier auction of furnishings
that belonged to restaurateurs Mary and Nick Mathews.

Collins went home empty-handed, though he was prepared to pay up to $2,500 for the 23-inch-tall sculpture.
About 15 people bid on it, he said. The sculpture went for $4,000.

"I am surprised there are so few dealers here," said Lana Hobbs Wolcott, who owns an antiques business in Norfolk.
She bought a pair of wall sconces, 48 inches tall, for $400. "They were dirt cheap," she said.
And she was kicking herself for not buying a pair of bronze sconces that went for $1,400.
A 10 percent "buyer premium," or auction fee, was added to the successful bid on each item.

About 2-1/2 hours into the sale, Wolcott said, "So far, things have gone way, way under market" -
except for sentimental items, which people are willing to pay more for.

The catalog listed 228 items or groups of items - old menus, mirrors, one of Nick's cigarette cases, paintings,
cupids, vases, urns, chandeliers, you name it. The popular restaurant was nothing if not an experience in stuff.

Sheila Majka, who lost her Seaford home to Hurricane Isabel, looked for light fixtures for her new home.
"My daddy used to bring me to Nick's back when I was a little girl," she said.

Majka noted that many items were obviously used.
"A lot of this stuff was damaged - but that was Mary [Mathews, Nick's former owner], that was part of her charm."

Jonathan Romberger of Gloucester bought - for $440, plus the 10 percent fee and sales tax - a 14-inch-thick butcher block
that was dovetailed and held together with wooden dowels. He planned to put it in his kitchen to use while cooking.
"It had to be there from the beginning of time," he said. "I thought it was going to go for a lot more."

Joe Ball was there for different reasons.
"They would turn over in their graves if they knew this was going on," he said of Mary and Nick Mathews,
his employers from 1971 to 1982.

Mary, who died in 1998, left the property to the Jamestown-Yorktown Educational Trust,
which sold it to the county. Nick died in 1983. They had no children.
Mary hoped that the foundation would carry on with the restaurant, Ball said.

He recalled the couple's philanthropy, small and large.
"They gave everything away," he said. "Anybody in uniform never paid, never."

Once, after two uniformed men ate on the house, Mary sent Ball on a mission:
"Joe, Joe," she said, "go out and see what kind of car they get in."

"They were dogcatchers from Maryland," Ball said with a laugh. But it faded fast.

"Ten years from now, people won't know who Mary and Nick Mathews were," he said.
"It's a shame, because they did so much."

Judith Haynes can be reached at 757-247-4627 or be e-mail at jhaynes@dailypress.com

Copyright © 2004, Daily Press

(This page was created on 01/12/04.)

"In honor of Nick and Mary, who were Greek, here's the midi:"
Courtesy of http://www.thegoldenyears.org/zorba.mid, at the suggestion of Dave Spriggs ('64) of VA - 01/12/04

Map image courtesy of http://maps.yahoo.com/maps - 07/13/04

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