It was Mike Harrington's grandfather who opened Harrington's Bar and Grill in San Francisco's financial district back in 1935. Harrington's plenty proud of his Irish heritage.
Just don't try getting into his bar on St. Patrick's Day. With thousands of revelers crowding the streets outside, part of the city's long-standing tradition of Celtic pride, Harrington throws up police barricades and limits entry to the few patrons smart enough to have purchased tickets in advance. And that's an improvement on 1986 and '87, when Harrington shut his doors altogether — sending a message that fair-weather Irishmen should belly up somewhere else.
“It makes for a nice festive time, but also you're having the people who support you throughout the year, rather than the ones who showed up first or were the pushiest to get in,” Harrington says.
Harrington's neighbors have been quick to take up the slack, though, including the Royal Exchange, an English (English!) pub, and Schroeder's, a German restaurant.
“I think they're putting up their shamrocks right now,” Harrington says.
Leaving aside this nice little moment of E.U. ecumenism, don't forget that St. Patrick's Day means big money for bar owners across our fair nation. Nearly 20 million people will hit the town Thursday, with another 12.7 million at private parties, all totaling up to what the National Retail Federation projects to be $1.94 billion worth of corned beef and Bushmills.
Another amateur night
That puts the day not too far behind New Year's Eve, and while it's probably not fair to say St. Patrick's Day is our official bid for drunkendom, the day is about as close an excuse as you'll find to officially tie one on.
“There's a lot of amateurs, that's for sure,” says Patrick Coyne, owner of Seattle's Irish Emigrant and Paddy Coyne's.
No one likes to rain on a parade, even one in March, but barkeeps across the nation acknowledge that the day is nothing short of what Ciaran Staunton, owner of New York bar O'Neill's, “calls an organized madhouse ... like a scene from Monty Python.”
That means early, long and frenetic days for many bar staffs. At pubs like O'Neill's or The Burren, in the Boston suburb of Somerville, the fun begins at 9 a.m. with a traditional Irish breakfast, and extends to 1 a.m. or beyond.
Staunton starts even earlier, renting a truck to haul out his barstools at 7 a.m. Tables get pulled off the floor after lunch. For him, it's the culmination of a week of partying that includes meals for luminaries like New York Gov. George Pataki and plenty of Irish visitors who come to see the Big Apple toast their homeland.
And for everyone else? We don't have Carnivale, and we can't all make it to New Orleans for Mardi Gras, so this is what we've got left. “The people that come through the door,” Coyne says, “They want to be as Irish as they want to be.”
They've got help. A day devoted to drinking (and, oh yeah, all that stuff about Irish culture and patron saints — but never mind that) is too good for beer companies to pass up. The success of big beer distributors in hawking a cartoon version of Celtic culture, complete with patently offensive leprechaun sketches, has worked so well that they're now using the same broad brush for less well-established holidays. (You're next, Cinco de Mayo!)
But if you're behind the bar — or worse, a poor server stuck in the midst of the crowd — you're facing an 18-hour day of spilled beer, plastic cups and type-As who can't hold their liquor. The only upside? Receipts can be 10 times or more what bars clear on a normal night; even with lousy tips, it's hard to complain too loud about St. Patrick's Day.
“If you skip New Year's Eve and St. Patrick's Day, you've got 363 other days you can go out, and that's plenty to me,” says Bennett Sawyer, The Burren's bar manager. “But as somebody who's concerned about bringing in the dough, you can't go wrong with it.”
‘They'll not be refused’In the midst of this insanity, some managers try and strike a balance. Paddy Reilly's Music Bar, named for its famous singing Irish part-owner, serves only Guinness stout on draft and won't ditch real pint glasses for plastic, even when the horde shows up. Live music starts at noon and plays until 4 a.m. But the 250-person music pub is wall-to-wall bodies the whole night, and a lengthy line forms outside the door — as it does at almost any Irish pub on this greenest of days.
“Any that chooses to come in, I make them well aware of it. And they come around to my back door, and they'll not be refused,” says manager Steve Duggan. “They won't come in, because it's too packed and crowded.”
And while, granted, there can be upsides to a drunken throng of would-be Gaels (“Women try to make out with every Irish guy in here,” Coyne says) it's also a day for more than its fair share of jackass behavior.
Staunton recalls one St. Patrick's Day when he spied across the bar several patrons — men and women — leaning over to kiss a man on the neck. Not exactly an established St. Paddy's tradition (at least not in New York), he went over to investigate and found a tube extending up from the gentleman's back, where he'd hidden a Camelback pack full of whiskey.
“I said, ‘OK guys, time to move it out,’” Staunton says. “Now when people come in with a bulky jacket I give them a pat on the back to see where they're keeping it.”
Word is that the drunken American revels have made it back across the Atlantic, and the streets of Dublin have traded the day's more sober significance for a flat-out bash.
Yes, it takes a long time to cook up corned beef. But in a rare moment of restraint, you might try a more low-key approach with friends at home. If you feel the need to endure lines and bathe yourself in beer, at least tip well and choose some decent beer. And try to respect yourself in the morning.
“What I've been telling my customers for years?” Harrington says. “I wouldn't be here either if I didn't have to.”