St. Cloud, Minnesota has a number of good and quite interesting restaurants that I've found during my travels there over the years. My dealer there was telling me about a new place - an authentic Irish pub - in downtown St. Cloud where he had installed the audio/video system. As I left his place around 4:30 p.m., I decided to stop by the Olde Brick House for a late lunch/early dinner.
The building at the corner of 1st Street South and 6th Ave. South (see map) that houses the Olde Brick House dates back to 1890 when it was opened as a saloon. Over the first 10 years of its existence, the tavern had an unsavory reputation as the upstairs was a gambling hall and a house of ill-repute. Local authorities raided the upstairs a couple times over the years and by 1900 the saloon had its liquor license revoked.
Starting in 1903, the building had been a "tied" house - a tavern owned by a local brewery, then a Moose Lodge, and then a cafe. By 1964, a new owner moved in and started a bar - the Corner Bar - that was famous locally for their hot beef sandwiches. In the 70's, the bar turned into the Aspen Corner Bar, then a few years later it was renamed the Dick Titus Watering Hole. But by the early 1990's with the country music/line-dancing/boot-scootin' craze full in gear, it became Charlie's Wild Wild West. When that era ended with a thud, it was rechristened First Street Station to try and hold on to the country crowd. When that didn't work, the owners renamed it Rum Runners. Rum Runners had a reputation for bringing in a tough crowd and when the city didn't renew their liquor license in 2013, the place closed down. It sat vacant for nearly 3 years.
Local restaurateur Steve Letnes - already somewhat of a restaurant mogul with regional chains Boulder Tap House (click here to read about the Road Tips visit to Boulder Tap House) and Grizzly's Wood Fired Grill - got together with restaurant industry veteran Pete Poepping to buy the empty space in September of 2015. Not knowing exactly what they wanted to do with the old building, the two brainstormed over a missing niche of restaurants in St. Cloud. They came up with the concept - an authentic Irish pub.
Pictured right - Pete Poepping and Steve Letnes. (Photo courtesy St. Cloud Times.)
The partners consulted Kieran Folliard who once owned four Irish pubs in the greater Minneapolis/St. Paul area until he sold his shares in 2011. Folliard came to look at the space and he said that the building would be a perfect space for an authentic Irish bar - it had a lot of space and it could accommodate multiple bars like many pubs have in Ireland. From there, Letnes and Poepping took off to tour pubs in Ireland before coming back to St. Cloud to begin a complete transformation of the building, gutting the interior down to the brick walls. 60 full-sized roll-off dumpsters hauled off furnishings, old supplies, fixtures and woodwork by the time they were ready to transform the space into an Irish pub.
To capture the authenticity of an Irish pub, Letnes and Poepping hired an Irish company - Ol' Irish Pubs, Ltd. - which specializes in building out authentic Irish pubs around the world - to design and build the fixtures for the restaurant. The original bar in the building - which dated back to the early 1900's - was painstakingly restored and after four months of building the fixtures in Ireland, the company came over to install the rest of the woodwork, fixtures, and furnishings. Olde Brick House opened in January of this year.
I found parking on the street in front of the building and went inside. Just inside the front door that sits on the corner was a small bar area. I'm guessing that it was the original bar with an ornate back bar with a walk-thru to another bar behind it. This is known as the Old Head Bar, a traditional greeting area for patrons at pubs in Ireland.
The bar behind the front bar was where I parked myself. There were not many people in the place - given that it was 4:45 in the afternoon - and I was greeted by a woman by the name of Tess who had a cheery attitude and a friendly demeanor. She gave me a menu to look over and I ordered up a Smithwick's - one of the many Irish beers they had on tap - to start out. The Smithwick's was fresh and tasty. Olde Brick House claims they have over 150 different types of Irish, Scotch and American whiskies to choose from and from the number of bottles along the wall on the back bar, I'd say that was a conservative number.
The main downstairs dining area features a number of high top tables and booths with a soothing honey yellow color on some of the walls with exposed brick along one wall.
The menu at Olde Brick House features a number of traditional Irish favorites including Guinness-battered fish and chips, corned beef and cabbage, bangers and mashed, and Shepherd's pie. They had a Celtic meatloaf on the menu that featured a slice of grilled meat loaf on a bed of champ potatoes, then topped with creamed cabbage, fried onion straws and gravy. I thought about that for a moment before I started to look for something else. For more American tastes, the Olde Brick House featured steaks, seafood and pasta on the menu.
The sandwich side of the menu featured a handful of burgers and sandwiches including a meat loaf sandwich (the meat loaf keep calling my name) that was topped with onion straws, cheddar cheese and gravy and served on a toasted baguette, as well as a cheese steak sandwich topped with a Guinness cheese sauce, onion straws and wine-sautéed mushrooms. They also had fish tacos - your choice of broiled or battered Atlantic cod - and they had a burger that was topped with cheddar cheese and brown sugar bacon. But I decided to go with the Olde Brick House's signature reuben sandwich.
The reuben came on toasted dark rye topped with Swiss cheese and sauerkraut, and came with a creamy housemade sauce called Dublin sauce. Plump pub chips - basically steak fries - and a small container of cole slaw came on the side.
The corned beef was thick cut and piled high in between the dark rye bread. There was a lot of meat in the sandwich and it was tender and flavorful. It was a messy sandwich - I had to ask Tess for more napkins twice. But it was wonderfully messy and the taste was very good. It was one of the better reuben sandwiches I've encountered in my travels. While I didn't try any of the cole slaw, I did have a few of the steak fries that were cooked perfectly with crispy shell on the outside and a soft flaky consistency inside. The sandwich was more than filling and I was definitely full when I finished the last bite.
After finishing my late lunch/early dinner, I took the time to run upstairs to take a look at the renovated second floor. There were a couple of private reception/dining rooms - one larger than the other - up there, but the largest room on the second floor - the Music Room - featured a large rectangular old fashioned bar in the center of the room. It featured large murals on the walls and a tin ceiling with antique style lighting around the room. Large windows allowed for a lot of natural daylight to come into the room. While I thought the downstairs dining area was quaint, I really liked the second floor bar area. It was the kind of place where I could sit for a couple hours unwinding while enjoying a beer.
The Olde Brick House is an exceptional Irish Pub. From the intricate detail on the decor, to the large selection of whiskies, to the number of Irish beers on tap, to the traditional Irish food found on the menu, there's not many places like the Olde Brick House that I've come across in my travels across the Midwest. The rueben sandwich was exceptional in quality and taste - the corned beef was thick, juicy and piled high on the dark rye bread. And Tess' service was professional, friendly and prompt. People who live in St. Cloud are fortunate to have an authentic Irish pub like the Olde Brick House in their community. I wish we had one just like it where I live.
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