JERSEY CITY — Hanging on the wall inside Grape Vine Tavern, a hole-in-the-wall bar on Newark Avenue near the county courthouse, is a bit of Jersey City history: liquor license No. 1.

Dated June 28, 1934, about six months after the end of Prohibition, the license carries the signatures of then-owner Fred "Pop" Werner and of Michael J. Gill, the city's clerk. The fee paid? $500.

The license, the first of 593 given out in 1934 after the city revamped how saloons were licensed following Prohibition, is worth around $350,000 in 2018. But the bar's owner, Thomas Mullaghy, was blunt when The Jersey Journal asked him if he ever thinks of selling.

"Oh, hell no," he said.

This year Mullaghy, 87, is commemorating his 50th year of running the Grape Vine, which he bought in 1968. His family is planning a celebratory bash on Saturday. He and his wife, Catherine, have been married for 54 years and they have four children and 10 grandchildren, at least one of which is learning how to tend bar.

Jersey City may have changed in the last 50 years, but for Grape Vine, it's same as it ever was. Mullaghy attributes its continued existence to hard work and persistence, especially when there were few customers.

"There were times you were sucking your thumb," he said. "We hung in there."

Also, he said, "We never changed."

A portion of the front page of The Jersey Journal on July 13, 1934.

Grape Vine Tavern has been open since the late 19th Century, when it was known as Grapevine Cafe. It had been in Werner's family for 50 years when he died in 1944. Ownership soon passed to Jimmy and Helen Deegan, who sold it to Mullaghy in 1968 for $10,000.

"There was one bottle on the shelf," Mullaghy said, his brogue still strong 58 years after leaving his native County Mayo.

Mullaghy at the time ran a bar in Union City called The Old Mill Tavern and a liquor store called Sam's in Bayonne. When he wasn't tending bar, he was loading trucks for Roadway Express in South Kearny. He and his family lived around the corner on Hoboken Avenue, where they still reside.

In those days, he said, the bar was packed from the second he opened its doors. Iron workers had a union hall nearby and would come in for a pick-me-up before their shift.

"Six o'clock in the morning, you couldn't get a seat," he said.

The neighborhood's population has undergone rapid changes in recent years. The number of households in the area earning six figures has more than doubled since 2009, Census figures show. Last year, a tower of luxury apartments opened two blocks south. A café on its ground floor is called Whealth.

The Grape Vine up until recently had a customer base of strictly old timers attracted to the no-frills atmosphere (asked what the most popular drink is, Mullaghy said, "Beer and a shot"). But some of the younger folks who live nearby have been trickling in.

"They like the reasonable prices," said Mullaghy's son, Thomas Jr. "We don't have any seven- or eight-dollar beers. Three-fifty or four dollars."

Saturday's party begins at 2 p.m. at the Grape Vine, 657 Newark Ave. Mullaghy will be making his specialty: corned beef.

"I couldn't boil water. It'd burn," he said. "I can't cook. But I can do corned beef."

Terrence T. McDonald may be reached at tmcdonald@jjournal.com. Follow him on Twitter @terrencemcd. Find The Jersey Journal on Facebook.