The brick building is set on a raised foundation, with a single-story shed-roof porch extending across the front, supported by square posts and accessed from the sidewalk by side-facing stairs.

The adjacent wood-frame building housed additional sleeping quarters.

[3] Constructed on the foundations of an earlier 1771 Tavern which burnt to the ground in 1784, the Salem Tavern was quickly rebuilt, because it formed an important function in the Moravian Church community which was a trade town.

Constructed by mason Johann Gottlob Krause using bricks already on hand for another building, the Tavern reopened quickly.

The Tavern was the lodgings for George Washington for two nights during his Southern Tour in 1791.