Up in Green Bay earlier this year, I wanted to find some place unique for dinner. Years ago, my wife and I went to a very good Irish pub in downtown Green Bay that has since closed up. But an Irish pub sounded pretty good to me that night. I did a quick check on the internet to see if there were any Irish pubs in the area and the search immediately took me to the web site for St. Brendan's Inn & Pub. It was a combination boutique hotel and Irish pub on the Fox River not far from the hotel I was staying at in downtown Green Bay. It was a cool evening and I decided to make the short drive down the way to St. Brendan's Irish Pub to check the place out.
St. Brendan's Inn and Pub are part of group of hotels run by Harp & Eagle, Ltd. which is headed by Sheboygan native Cary James "Rip" O'Dwanny. His first hotel - County Clare Irish Inn & Pub - opened in Milwaukee in 1996. Other hotel/pub ventures popped up in Plymouth, WI and Kenosha before they bought the site of the old bus depot and public parking area in Green Bay in 2002 and built St. Brendan's Inn and Pub in 2008.
St. Brendan's Inn and Pub was located about six blocks from my hotel. As I said, it was a somewhat unseasonably cool evening (we had a lot of those in the spring and early summer of this year) and I drove the short distance to the place. (see map) I pulled into the parking lot next to the large and stately three-story building that housed the inn and pub. The entrance to the hotel takes you to a small lobby area, but the pub is off to the right side of the lobby.
To the left of the lobby was a hallway that took you out to a patio area that looked out onto the Fox River. It featured a number of metal woven tables and chairs, but it was way too cool of an evening to be sitting on the patio that night.
The pub is segmented into a dining area and the bar area with a half-wall separating the two. The dining room featured a wood ceiling with antique light fixtures hanging down. But the most impressive part of the room were the large stained-glass windows that towered along the walls opposite the bar area. It was elegant, yet somewhat homey in the dining room.
The bar area was modeled after a typical Irish public house with 15 beers on tap and a full bar featuring Scotch and Irish whiskies. It was at the bar where I decided to park myself for the evening. A couple bartenders were working behind the bar and one by the name of Luke asked me what I would like to drink. I ordered up a Smithwick's to start out. The other bartender asked me if I was going to dine with them and after answering in the affirmative, he gave me a dinner menu to look over.
The food at St. Brendan's Pub was a fine offering of Irish culinary favorites - corned beef and cabbage, Shepherd's pie, a Guinness-gravy pot roast, and an Irish stew with braised beef and root vegetables. They also had pork tenderloin medallions, as well as a lamb shank on the menu. Sandwiches included a traditional corned beef reuben, a braised pot roast sandwich, a battered cod sandwich, and a black angus beef burger. I literally had six or seven things that I was considering to have for dinner that night.
The bar had a pretty sizable lip on the edge. Just before my food was brought out, one of the bartenders set a plank down that was the same depth as the lip to allow me to bring my food closer. I thought it was sort of a nice touch considering I've eaten at bars with similar features in the past and it's sort of a hassle to lean so far over to get to your plate that your face is nearly in the food.
For dinner that night, I got the meat loaf with mashed potatoes and a vegetable combination of grilled Brussels sprouts, carrots, and zucchini. Now, I broke my own rule of ordering meat loaf when I'm in a restaurant, but the description of the blend of meat they use - veal, beef and pork - was similar to how I make my meat loaf at home. And my meat loaf is excellent. But I should have known as this meat loaf was not as good as mine.
The meat loaf was topped with a gravy sauce made with Worcestershire sauce and caramelized onions. The gravy was good, but I needed more to go along with the meal. Luke was able to bring some more out to me and it was needed. The meat loaf was dry and sort of lifeless. The mashed potatoes were rather lukewarm and sort of hard. The Brussels sprouts were very sour in taste. At least the Harp beer - which I ordered for my second beer - and the gravy kept the entire meal from spiraling out of control. I was just kicking myself for not listening to my instincts and going with one of the other Irish-style favorites they had to offer.
I know I ordered the wrong thing on my visit to St. Brendan's Inn and Pub. The meat loaf was not that good, the mashed potatoes were cool, and the grilled Brussel sprouts were very sour in taste. I'm sure that anything else I was considering - like the Shepherd's pie, the braised pot roast, or the corned beef and cabbage - would have been significantly better than the meat loaf. Well, I HOPE that those offerings would be better than the meat loaf I had. Oh, well. At least the service and the beer selection was good. And it was very difficult to beat the authentic Irish-style pub at St. Brendan's Inn. If I make it back at some point - and I hope I can - I'll try something other than the meatloaf.
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