As the most critical meal in New York Giants history wound down Wednesday night, Tim Salouros, the owner of Elia restaurant in East Rutherford, N.J., walked into his private dining room in the old wine cellar and looked out at a contingent that included general manager Joe Schoen, senior executive Chris Mara and highly sought after NFL coach John Harbaugh.
The Giants had called Salouros that morning, as they have for every prospective head coaching dinner since 2018, the year the team hired Pat Shurmur as head coach. He was warned that Harbaugh was on a time constraint and that they would need a table for between four and eight people at between 5 p.m. and 5:30 p.m.. Harbaugh had a private jet flight back to Baltimore at 7:30 p.m. Salouros knew he would have the dinner downstairs because, as he joked, the wine cellar tends to be cooler than all the other parts of the restaurant, which is good in case the mood in the room gets heated.
