Miss McGlinchey’s? Get to Fergie’s New Irish Pub the Monto ASAP
Cheap hot dogs? Check. Cheap beers? Check. Ms. Pac-Man? Check. A smoky environment? Well, sorta.
Left: Fergus Carey aka Fergie, the owner of Fergie’s Pub, is recreating McGlinchey’s at his new bar the Monto in Old City (photo by Victor Fiorillo) | Right: The late Philadelphia dive bar McGlinchey’s ((Photo by Michael Cramer via Flickr/Creative Commons)
The iconic and ridiculously smoky Philadelphia dive bar McGlinchey’s has been closed since last year, when it suddenly shut down and eventually went on the market for more than $2 million. In April, Philadelphia development company Alterra Property Group picked up the property, but it remains unclear precisely what their plans for it are. But one man is determined to keep the McGlinchey’s flame alive, at least for a bit.
Last week, we told you that The Monto, the new Old City bar from Fergie’s Pub owner Fergus “Fergie” Carey, was without a chef or a menu after the restaurant and its chef, Best of Philly-winning sandwich maker N.A. Poe, parted ways with after just two days of business. Poe was ever so briefly running the kitchen, and neither Poe nor Carey have said on the record exactly what went wrong. Things happen.
Carey is currently entertaining serious offers from several Philadelphia chefs to take over the kitchen at the Monto, with the idea that Carey and his partners will run the bar portion of the Monto while leaving the currently non-existent kitchen operation in the hands of whoever the new chef will be. The as-yet-to-be-determined chef will lease the kitchen at the Monto, the same setup that Carey has at his South Philly bar The Jim, named after his partner Jim McNamara. Carey tells Philly Mag that he’s waiting until after the World Cup to make any final decisions on who will be in charge of the food, which Carey says will include some traditional Irish food as well as some more modern Irish dishes.
Meanwhile, Carey and McNamara, both of whom worked at McGlinchey’s before Carey opened Fergie’s Pub on Sansom Street in 1994, have decided to use the lull in the kitchen as an opportunity to pay tribute to McGlinchey’s, a weeklong event they are calling “A Salute to McGlinchey’s.”
In addition to its smokiness, McGlinchey’s was also known for a tabletop Ms. Pac-Man machine, questionable hot dogs served out of a questionable kitchen (that was the only hot food that McGlinchey’s regularly offered), and really cheap beers. And so, starting on Monday, Carey, McNamara, and their two other partners, longtime Philly Irish pub bartenders and personalities JohnJoe Devlin and Gary “Swing” McDonald, will bring the McGlinchey’s to the Monto.
From noon until 7 p.m. Monday through Sunday, you can expect $2 drafts of Coors Banquet beer, a real bargain in terms of Old City draft prices. There will be $1 hot dogs aplenty, with or without sauerkraut. “And yes, you can have ketchup if you want it,” Carey jests. (Hopefully, it’s Heinz! Pet peeve of ours, a buck or not.) After 7 p.m. at the Monto, the Coors Banquet beers go up to $4 and the hot dogs will cost you $2 until closing.
