Rick Hathaway, the father of GOP congressional candidate Joe Hathaway and a longtime Republican county committeeman in Essex County, died on March 15. He was 80.
He was well-known in Bloomfield as the owner of The Feedbag, a popular local dive bar and family restaurant. On St. Patrick’s Day, Hathaway would lead a traditional Irish sing-along at his bar. It was later reimagined as Hathaway’s Pub, a piano bar, and was renamed Pianos Bar and Grille. In 2001, Hathaway’s bar hosted a three-day battle of the bands to raise money for the World Trade Center victims’ relief fund.
A former boxer, Hathaway fought for the Golden Gloves middleweight title in the 1970s, and was a Middlesex County sheriff’s officer and diver.
Hathaway served as president of the Nutley Little Theater Barn, a regional theater troupe. He was a member of the Bloomfield UNICO and a member of the Bloomfield Chamber of Commerce.
“He was, without a doubt, the most larger-than-life, one-of-a-kind person that anyone who knew him ever met,” said his son, the mayor of Randolph and the Republican nominee for Congress in an April special election in New Jersey’s 11th district. “He had a hell of a run, and there will never be another quite like Rick Hathaway.”
A memorial service will be held in the next few months.
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