Vaughn Comforts

 

Vaughn Comforts on the Somers Point Circle.
Photo from Bill Carr's collection.

Long before Chris Mathews was a singing waiter at Your Father's Mustache, on the other side of the circle, there was Vaughn Comfort's, where the Chinese restaurant is today.

Before the excavated it, Vaughn Comfort's sat up on a hill on pilings and overlooked the bay.

Vaughn Comfort himself hired the singing waiters, and since there was no air conditioning, you could hear them singing as you drove around the circle.

Legend has it on good authority that at one time, two young men came down from North Jersey and auditioned for jobs as singing waiters. They say that Vaughn Comfort would play the piano and have those auditioning sing from the other side of the room, and if he couldn't hear you, you didn't the job. One of the two guys from North Jersey got the job, the other didn't. His name was Frank Sinatra.