The Walker’s Ghost
Before there was a bar, there was a man who walked.
Stephen Taukus “Talkhouse” Pharaoh was a Montaukett Native American born around 1819 in a wigwam at Accabonac, in what is now Springs. As a descendant of Chief Wyandanch, he carried the bloodline of the leader who had greeted the first English settlers on Long Island. During the Civil War, he served his country. Later, he hunted whales in the Pacific. Some accounts suggest he may have panned for gold in California.
But what made him famous was walking.
Every day, Talkhouse walked twenty-five to fifty miles round-trip from Montauk to East Hampton and Sag Harbor. Along the way, he delivered letters and packages. Additionally, he carried hand-carved scrub brushes to sell to housewives. His speed and endurance became so legendary that P.T. Barnum hired him for his circus, billing him as “The World’s Greatest Walker” and staging races against horse-drawn wagons.
He usually won.
Talkhouse died in 1879, reportedly of tuberculosis, while walking one of his beloved trails. Today, he rests in Indian Fields, Montauk, overlooking Lake Montauk. A government military headstone marks his grave.
Meanwhile, his photograph now watches over a stage in Amagansett where Paul McCartney and Metallica have played.
The Bar That Became a Stage
The building at 161 Main Street in Amagansett started as a nineteenth-century boarding house for whalers.
By 1970, however, it had become a jukebox bar. That year, Albert Pontick Jr. and Terry Butler opened it and named it after the legendary walker whose image they hung behind the bar. Consequently, the place attracted locals and summer people who wanted cold drinks and loud music from the machine.
For seventeen years, Stephen Talkhouse remained a jukebox bar. Then Buddy Pontick, who had taken over, ran into trouble with partners. As a result, the bar sat closed. Eventually, a struggling writer named Peter Honerkamp walked in.
Honerkamp had just finished writing what he describes as “a pretty bad book” and was in the middle of “a second book that sucked just as much.” One night, he was drinking with Clifford Irving, the author who had done prison time for a bogus Howard Hughes autobiography. Irving asked what he wanted to do with his life.
“I’d like to own a bar,” Honerkamp said.
A week later, Honerkamp had borrowed money from his father and in-laws and bought the Stephen Talkhouse. It was 1987. At that point, he was armed with two things: a dream of making the place into a major music destination and a memory of My Father’s Place, a tiny Nassau County club where Bowie and the Stones had traveled from Manhattan to play.
His first act was John Hammond, a famous blues musician. Honerkamp paid Hammond $750, charged $10 per ticket, and packed the place. Until then, Amagansett had never seen anything like it.
The Living Room Where Legends Play
The main room at Stephen Talkhouse measures roughly twenty by twenty feet.
This is not a typo. In fact, the stage sits maybe eight feet wide by six feet deep. Across from it, the bar runs along the opposite wall. Between them, perhaps fifty people can sit at tables. When the room fills, bodies press together like subway riders.
This is where Paul McCartney played I Saw Her Standing There in August 2024.
Similarly, this is where Metallica performed their smallest show in a decade in August 2025, while McCartney, Howard Stern, Sylvester Stallone, and Colin Jost watched from the crowd.
Moreover, this is where over fifty Rock and Roll Hall of Fame artists and bands have performed since 1987. Although the Rolling Stones haven’t played here as a band, Bobby Keys, Ron Wood, Mick Taylor, and Marianne Faithfull have. Furthermore, both Mick Jagger and Keith Richards have watched shows from the audience.
The list reads like a history of American popular music: Billy Joel, Paul Simon, Sting, Jon Bon Jovi, Jimmy Buffett, Van Morrison, Crosby, Stills & Nash, The Velvet Underground, The Allman Brothers, Jefferson Airplane, The Kinks, The Who, The Byrds, Bo Diddley, Jimmy Cliff, Buddy Guy, Patti Smith, Rufus Wainwright, Steve Earle, Taj Mahal, Judy Collins, Leon Russell, Southside Johnny, The English Beat, 10,000 Maniacs, Ingrid Michaelson.
Remarkably, they all played in a room not much bigger than your living room.
Why They Come
The question is obvious: why would artists who fill arenas play a two-hundred-fifty-capacity bar in Amagansett?
Part of the answer is geography. Indeed, many of these musicians own homes in the Hamptons. Billy Joel lives nearby. Paul Simon is a neighbor. Paul McCartney summers here. Meanwhile, Jimmy Buffett had a place in Montauk and loved fishing from his boat. When they’re home, they want to play.
Part of the answer is economics. Peter Honerkamp paid them. “No one came for any other reason,” he says. In 1987, for instance, he convinced John Hammond, Mose Allison, Loudon Wainwright III, Richie Havens, Taj Mahal, Buddy Guy, Albert Collins, and Jesse Colin Young to play by simply offering money.
But the deeper answer is intimacy.
Playing Madison Square Garden means performing for twenty thousand people who appear as a single mass. By contrast, playing the Talkhouse means watching individual faces react to every note. As a result, the audience feeds off the performers. In turn, the performers feed off the audience. Together, the synergy creates something that stadiums can’t replicate.
“We’re the smallest club in the world that offers this kind of entertainment,” Honerkamp says.
The artists know it. That’s why they keep coming back.
The Staff That Never Leaves
Here’s what makes the Talkhouse truly strange: the employees stay forever.
Klyph Black, Honerkamp’s cousin, started playing music there in September 1987. Remarkably, he still performs regularly. Similarly, Larry Wagner has tended bar for decades. Phillip Vega worked the bar for thirty-three years. Likewise, Paulino Collado has been there since the beginning. In total, twenty employees have worked at the Talkhouse for over fifteen years. Additionally, thirty employees have worked there for over ten.
The staff calls themselves “The Island of Misfit Toys.”
This retention defies hospitality industry norms. Most bars churn through employees. The Talkhouse, however, hoards them. Consequently, the result is a culture that regular customers recognize and trust.
There’s a sign in the front room that captures the philosophy: “Customers come and go. Here at the Talkhouse the employee is always right.”
This inversion of standard hospitality logic somehow works. The employees become part of the show. Their personalities, their jokes, their institutional memory all contribute to an atmosphere that feels more like a family reunion than a nightclub.
The Three Bars
The Talkhouse is actually three bars in one.
The front room contains the stage, the long wooden bar, and the dance floor. This is where the magic happens, where bodies press together and famous musicians play within touching distance. When a show is happening, this room becomes a single organism of sound and movement.
Meanwhile, the enclosed back patio offers a reprieve. It’s quieter here, partially air-conditioned, a place to catch your breath and hold a conversation. Between sets, regulars retreat here to recover.
Finally, the Tiki Bar on the side sits mostly under the stars. Smokers congregate here. The atmosphere is looser, the conversations longer. From this vantage point, you can watch the Main Street of Amagansett while sipping your drink.
The layout allows different experiences to coexist. You can dance yourself into exhaustion, then recover on the patio, then smoke under the stars, then return to the dance floor. In this way, the Talkhouse accommodates all modes of nightlife within a single address.
Jimmy Buffett’s Bar
No celebrity has done more for the Stephen Talkhouse than Jimmy Buffett.
He played almost annually, often for charity. On one memorable occasion, he tended bar during a Coldplay show, standing behind the counter alongside Patty Smyth and John McEnroe. Additionally, he hosted two concerts for the Wounded Warrior Project, which began when a Talkhouse bartender decided to ride his bike across the country for charity.
In 2005, Honerkamp had booked a concert at a Riverhead vineyard with Joan Osborne, The Funk Brothers, and Ann Wilson. Unfortunately, the proceeds were supposed to go to the Wounded Warrior Project, but instead, the event was set to lose over $30,000. When Jimmy Buffett agreed to headline, he saved the show, put it in the black, and raised money for the charity.
There’s a story about Hurricane Irene. The storm had knocked out power in Amagansett. However, the Talkhouse had a generator, so the show could go on. Before the concert, the Secret Service checked the club and positioned agents throughout. Then Bill and Hillary Clinton walked down a darkened street. Buffett was on stage. After the first song, there was a loud pop and the lights went out.
Nevertheless, the show continued.
Buffett died in September 2023. With his passing, the Talkhouse lost more than a performer. It lost a friend.
The Local Scene
For all its famous visitors, the Talkhouse belongs to its local musicians.
Nancy Atlas and her band have been throwing down for over twenty-five years. During that time, she’s opened for Jimmy Buffett, Paul Simon, Elvis Costello, Lucinda Williams, Crosby, Stills & Nash, Toots and the Maytals. Her shows at the Talkhouse have shattered house records. According to Peter Honerkamp, she’s “as great an artist as has ever emerged from the East End.”
Klyph Black still plays regularly, as he has since 1987. Gene Casey performs as well. The Lone Sharks, Little Head Thin Skin, Rubix Kube all have followings. Importantly, these local artists aren’t opening acts waiting for their big break. Instead, they’re the heartbeat of the place.
The schedule reflects this balance. Summer brings six nights of live music with karaoke on Wednesdays. Winter, by contrast, offers shows on Fridays and Saturdays. Year-round, local bands play reggae, rock, or soul most nights after 10pm for a ten-dollar cover on weekdays or thirty on weekends.
This isn’t charity for struggling artists. Rather, it’s recognition that the Talkhouse exists because of its community, not despite it.
The Charity Mission
The Talkhouse opens its doors constantly for people in need.
When staff members face medical emergencies, benefit concerts raise money. When neighbors suffer losses, the musicians show up unpaid. Over the years, the venue has hosted fundraisers for local causes like Share the Harvest Farm and national causes like victims of Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico.
In August 2017, for example, the Talkhouse celebrated its thirtieth anniversary by throwing a party for patrons, with proceeds going to James Pellow, a beloved bartender recovering from a serious medical condition. Similarly, in August 2020, another benefit supported Phillip Vega, who had worked the bar for thirty-three years.
Nancy Atlas alone has helped raise over two million dollars for various causes without taking a penny. When a Montauk baby named Sully Forbes was diagnosed with a rare eye cancer, a Talkhouse benefit raised thirty thousand dollars for the family.
This is how a bar becomes a community institution. Not through marketing. Through showing up when it matters.
The Code
Understanding the Talkhouse means learning its rhythms.
First: buy a season pass if you’re coming regularly. The pass saves money on weekend covers and signals that you belong.
Second: arrive by 10pm on summer weekends. Otherwise, the line forms and the room fills. Late arrivals wait outside while the magic happens inside.
Third: expect the unexpected. The Talkhouse promises only that anyone can walk through those doors. For instance, Paul McCartney might share a mic with a local singer. Or Metallica might play their smallest show in a decade. Perhaps Keith Richards might be watching from the crowd.
Fourth: respect the staff. After all, they’ve been here longer than you. They’ve seen more than you. In essence, they’re part of the entertainment, not obstacles to it.
Fifth: dance. The floor exists for a reason. The proximity to the stage exists for a reason. Simply put, this is not a listening room. This is a place where music moves bodies.
The Next Generation
Peter Honerkamp’s children now help run the Talkhouse.
Max Honerkamp manages operations. Meanwhile, Ruby Honerkamp created Talkhouse Encore, a line of ready-to-drink canned cocktails designed to channel the laid-back, come-as-you-are spirit of the legendary bar. Each can combines real spirits with sparkling water and fruit juice, no added sugars, no artificial flavors.
The family succession matters because it suggests continuity. Too often, legendary venues die when their founders retire. The Talkhouse, however, has a plan for survival.
Furthermore, the brand extends beyond the physical bar. The cocktails carry the Talkhouse name into homes and events. The reputation attracts corporate sponsorships like the annual SiriusXM concert. Ultimately, the institution that Peter Honerkamp built from a shuttered jukebox bar has become something larger than any single owner.
What It Costs
Ticket prices range from ten dollars for local bands on weekday nights to thirty dollars on weekends to twenty-five to one hundred fifty dollars for national acts, depending on who’s playing.
The season pass offers value for regular attendees. Meanwhile, drinks are priced for a bar, not a concert venue.
The economics work because the room is small. Two hundred fifty people paying thirty dollars each is seventy-five hundred dollars at the door. Add drinks and you have a viable business model. In other words, the intimacy that makes the venue special also makes it financially sustainable.
The Point
The Stephen Talkhouse exists because Peter Honerkamp understood something about live music.
Intimacy creates magic. When you can see the sweat on a performer’s face, when you can feel the bass in your chest, when you can share a moment of eye contact with an artist mid-song, something happens that stadiums can’t replicate.
The Talkhouse has preserved that intimacy for nearly four decades. During that time, it has attracted Rock and Roll Hall of Famers to a room the size of a living room. It has nurtured local musicians who became East End legends. Moreover, it has built a staff that stays forever and a community that returns constantly.
The bar is named for a man who walked fifty miles a day because that’s what he did. He didn’t do it for fame or money. He did it because walking was who he was.
Similarly, the Talkhouse is who Amagansett is. It’s been here since 1970. It’s been a music venue since 1987. And it will be here after the summer people leave and the locals remain.
Some places create memories too good to remember. Some places promise only the unexpected.
The Stephen Talkhouse is both.
Facts Box
Address: 161 Main Street, Amagansett, NY 11930
Phone: (631) 267-3117
Hours:
- Monday: 7pm-12am
- Tuesday: 7pm-1am
- Wednesday-Thursday: 7pm-2am
- Friday-Saturday: 7pm-3am
- Sunday: 7pm-2am
Capacity: 250
Age: 21+
Cover Charge:
- Weekday local bands: $10
- Weekend local bands: $30
- National acts: $25-$150
Year Established: 1970 (as bar); 1987 (as music venue)
Owner: Peter Honerkamp (since 1987); now managed with Max and Ruby Honerkamp
Named For: Stephen Taukus “Talkhouse” Pharaoh (c. 1819-1879), Montaukett walker
Notable Performers: Over 50 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame artists including Paul McCartney, Billy Joel, Paul Simon, The Rolling Stones (members), Van Morrison, The Velvet Underground, The Allman Brothers, Metallica, Jimmy Buffett, Jon Bon Jovi, Sting
