A white-haired man walked slowly through the doors and into a dim O'Gara's Bar & Grill. Jack Dempsey first started coming to this longtime Irish pub in the 1970s, and on Thursday afternoon, he "wanted to see who was here."
Within minutes, owner Dan O'Gara, the third generation of his family to run the establishment at the corner of St. Paul's Snelling and Selby avenues, was shaking Dempsey's hand as they shared memories. "I remember when you were a busboy," said Dempsey.
O'Gara's has been a familiar presence for Dempsey and generations of St. Paul pub-goers ever since O'Gara's grandfather Jim started sliding beers and shots over the bar top on March 1, 1941. But change is coming.
Dan O'Gara plans to close the bar, demolish the 110-year-old building and replace it with a large new apartment building and a smaller new O'Gara's, perhaps as soon as late 2019. But on Thursday, O'Gara wanted to make it clear that it's all intended to keep the legacy alive.
"We've got a great group of regulars," said O'Gara, who began giving neighbors, regulars and community members a heads-up about his plans weeks ago. "But we've got an aging building that needs a lot of maintenance work and, quite honestly, our business is changing so rapidly."
Gone are the days when bands filled O'Gara's Shanty six nights a week. Gone are the nights when students from several area colleges crowded a bar expanded over the years to accommodate well over 900 patrons. These are the days of small-and-nimble taprooms, brew pubs and restaurants competing for customers. So it's time for O'Gara's to change too, he said. The new O'Gara's will be at the same location but will hold only about 300.
O'Gara said he tapped Ryan Cos. — builders of The Vintage across the street with its upscale apartments and Whole Foods store — as the developer, because he liked the way Ryan invited neighbors to weigh in on that project.
"They don't cut corners through the neighborhood process and do the right thing," he said. "They have the neighborhood's interests at heart. They really do."