The doubly significant fun begins today at Neary’s at 11:30 a.m.
There will be, as usual, plenty of green today at New York Irish restaurant and bar Neary’s on East 57th Street. But also a little gold, as today marks additionally the popular establishment’s 50th anniversary.
Neary’s doubled its luck by opening for business March 17, 1967. From this week’s Grub Street write-up :
Not much has changed at Neary’s. There’s a 1954 NC cash register that’s still in use, the famous cherry-red leather booths came with the place, the menu has literally never changed and the bill delivered to each customer is still written out by hand. Only four chefs have ever run the kitchen, and servers stay on for decades. “We’ve stood still in time,” says Mary O’Connor, who has worked as a waitress at Neary’s for 39 years. “Don’t change anything that works,” she adds. “People don’t like change.”
There are 12 seats at the bar, and up to three nights a week, Don Warner can be found at one, sipping Scotch and chatting with the other customers. Liora Michelle is another regular, an opera singer who’s studied her scores at Neary’s for the better part of a decade. Michelle and Warner have become friends over the years, and the entire place feels a bit like the Sutton Place version of Cheers: Everyone seems to know everyone else’s name.
Adding to the old-school charm of Neary’s is the fact that owner Jim Neary, 86 (pictured), who was able to buy the building in 1986, started the business with friend Brian Mulligan after the pair spied a classified ad in The New York Times. To seal the deal, they put $500 down.
Madeleine Buckley, author of the Grub Street article, tweeted that it was an honor to write about Neary’s. She is currently a student at Syracuse University. And, in honor of aforementioned regular Michelle, we’ve included an excerpt from one of her opera performances below. Happy St. Patrick’s Day!
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Richard Horgan
