On my first trip back to New England in about 30 years, I was going to be in the Boston suburbs but not in the city. Before I went out, I told a former colleague of mine who had Boston as part of his territory when we worked together that I would be in the Boston area. He said, "Nearly every time I went to Boston, I'd stop at this Irish pub west of downtown. One time, I took (another colleague we worked with) there for lunch and it was so good he wanted to go back for dinner that night. And we did!" He was so enthusiastic about the place that I had to check it out when I was in the Boston area recently. Here's the story of my visit to Paddy's Public House in Newton, MA.
Curt O'Hara was born in Chicago and eventually found himself in the Boston area in the Coast Guard during the Korean War. It was there that he met a young lady - Gretchen - whom he eventually married. Curt O'Hara had previously worked for Sears Roebuck in Chicago and after the two were married they moved back to Chicago. However, after a year, Gretchen convinced Curt to move back to the Boston area where they settled into the town of Waltham, MA where Gretchen was from. Curt then took a job at the popular Finnerty's Country Squire restaurant in Wayland, MA in 1954. Curt continued to work at the restaurant for the next 31 years, eventually becoming the manager of the restaurant.
Curt brought in some of his sons to help out at the restaurant. John O'Hara cut his teeth in the restaurant business at Finnerty's as did his younger brother Karl. John eventually went to college, got his degree and had a job with International Harvester Credit Corporation until the company went out of business in 1985. Curt O'Hara had always wanted to run his own place and with John and Karl he opened O'Hara's in Newton Highlands later that year. In 2002, the former Troubadour restaurant in Newton became available and the O'Hara's jumped on the location to open their second restaurant - Paddy's Public House. It was named after Curt's middle name Patrick (or "Paddy" in Ireland).
While the names of the two O'Hara family-owned restaurants were different, they were basically the same restaurant. People used to say the food was better at O'Hara's, or it was better at Paddy's - but the food menus were basically the same between the two places. While O'Hara's drew in more of a professional crowd from businesses around their area, Paddy's drew more families as it was more in a residential section of Newton.
Pictured right - John and Karl O'Hara. Picture courtesy Boston Voyager.
Curt O'Hara had semi-retired from the restaurants in the early 2000's not long after Paddy's Public House had opened, but continued to come in from time to time to play the host and to see regular customers. Curt O'Hara passed away in 2016 at the age of 84.
John and Karl O'Hara continued to run both restaurants and oversaw an expansion to O'Hara's in 2012. However, John O'Hara fell ill a couple years after his father passed and he also passed away in 2018 at the age of 61. Karl O'Hara continues to oversee the two family owned pubs to this day.
Years ago, I worked as an independent rep for three or four companies around the greater Boston area. I was living in Newton, IA at the time and I remember a conversation I had with one of the ladies at one of the companies. She asked me where I lived and I said, "Newton."
"Newton," she exclaimed excitedly. "I live in Newton!" Well, it took us both a few moments to figure out that she lived in Newton, MA while I was living in Newton, IA. So, I had wanted to go to Newton, MA at some point and going to Paddy's I got my chance.
I had stayed up in Nashua, NH the evening before and drove down to Woburn north of Boston for a morning meeting. I had an afternoon meeting down in Hanover south of Boston so it was almost halfway between the two meetings for me to stop into Paddy's to have lunch.
Paddy's Public House is on Elm Street in Newton, MA just north of the Mass Turnpike and about a mile east of Interstate 95 just west of Boston (see map). There is usually parking on the street in front of the restaurant, but they were redoing the sidewalk in front of Paddy's and they had the street down to just one lane with no parking on the west side of the street. There was a Newton cop in front of the restaurant directing traffic around the workers. There is a public parking lot just across the street from Paddy's and it cost something like 75 cents per hour to park there. I ended up parking in there and paying at the kiosk just across from Paddy's.
The front door was closed off at Paddy's due to the sidewalk work in front of the place, so I was directed by the cop to go to the side door which was the handicap entrance to the restaurant. Upon entering that door, I found the main dining room with booths along the walls and tables in the middle. Pictures were hung on the mahogany walls with a low mahogany accented ceiling with recessed lighting. It was a cozy and comfortable place.
I decided to go sit at the bar and there were a few people in there just as the noon rush was beginning. Comfortable high-backed chairs were at the mahogany bar and a few booths were along the wall facing the bar. After I sat down, I was greeted by Alaina who was bartending that day. I heard her tell someone that she had gone to another restaurant over 20 years ago and shadowed a waitress on a shift. "Then they never called me back," she said. "I came over here and got hired and been here ever since!"
Alaina dropped off a menu for me and asked me what I wanted to drink. They had a full bar as well as a number of domestic and craft beers on tap. I had a meeting later in the afternoon so I thought having a beer wouldn't be that bad. They had a Clown Candy hazy IPA from Fam's Brewing Company (ironically out of Charleston, SC) on tap and I had a pint of that.
My former colleague raved about the clam chowder at Paddy's when he was telling me about the place. I started out with a bowl of the clam chowder. Since it had been over 30 years since I'd been to Boston, I really hadn't had good New England-style fresh clam chowder for years. This was very good. The clams were big and meaty, and the creamy broth with potato chunks was simply tasty. It was a great start to what I hoped would be a good lunch.
Looking through the menu, I found a number of things that I found interesting. They had pan-seared haddock tacos with a sweet corn and black bean salsa, greens and a chipotle sauce on grilled flour tortillas. The grilled blackened shrimp tacos also caught my eye as they were topped with a mango pico de gallo and a lime sour cream drizzle. They had sautéed chicken curry medallions on the menu, as well as a Shepherd's pie. Handheld offerings included burgers such as the Montreal burger which was seasoned with Montreal steak seasoning and topped with cheddar cheese and applewood smoked bacon. A grilled reuben was on the menu as well as a tuna salad sandwich that was served on multi-grain bread. I truly considered each one of those items on the menu.
But in the end I got the O'Brien's sandwich - pastrami steamed in Guinness beer, topped with Swiss chees, sautéed onions, and a creamy horseradish sauce served on a roll. I was a little leery as to what constituted a roll at Paddy's, but I was pleasantly surprised that it was a soft roll - more of a soft bun. And it was piled high with the braised pastrami that was tender and fall-apart stringy. And I mean it was piled high. Bread and butter pickles came on the side. I had a choice of either French fries or onion rings. I couldn't really make up my mind and Alaina offered me a half-and-half of the fries and onion rings. The fries were good, but the onion rings were better.
The sandwich was delicious. The pastrami was tender and was so flavorful. There wasn't much of a horseradish flavor from the cream sauce, and the Swiss cheese was more of an afterthought. But I didn't care - the pastrami was some of the finest I had ever tasted. (I'm going to have to smoke a brisket at some point and then braise it in Guinness.) It was a great sandwich.
My friend didn't steer me wrong - Paddy's Public House was as good as advertised. The pastrami sandwich was one of the better ones that I ever had, and the house-made clam chowder was also outstanding. Alaina was a great server/bartender and I thought Paddy's would be just a great place to hang for more than just a meal. I don't know how often I'll be back in the Boston area, but I found enough on the menu to make me want to go back to Paddy's to try something else. There has to be hundreds of Irish bars/pubs in the greater Boston area but I don't know if many are much better than Paddy's Public House.
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