Philly’s Favorite Bar Owner Talks the Perfect Pour and Hating Bar TVs

Fergus “Fergie” Carey at his new Old City bar, The Monto/ Photograph by Dave Moser

Fergus “Fergie” Carey moved to Philadelphia from Dublin way back when Wilson Goode was in office in the ’80s; he opened Fergie’s Pub on the then-deserted and dingy 1200 block of Sansom Street when Ed Rendell was running the city. In the years since, he’s become such a familiar figure that he’s often referred to as Philly’s unofficial mayor — and is certainly more beloved than any of our current city politicians. Now, after opening a string of other bars — some hits, some misses — he recently debuted The Monto in Old City in the former Mac’s Tavern, better known as the It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia bar.

Congratulations on The Monto¹, the 11th bar you’ve owned, which replaces Mac’s Tavern. What did you think of Mac’s?
I never went there. It seemed so stupid to me to open this Always Sunny in Philadelphia bar. It’s not like you were going to bump into Danny DeVito or Rob McElhenney there.

Are you a big fan of the show?
Saw the first episode. Not my thing. Long before Mac’s was there, the bar was known as Anthony’s, and I was there many times. Anthony’s was the kind of place where you could always get an ice-cold $2 draft.

So what’s the concept behind The Monto?
What do you mean “concept”? It’s just a bar, a pub. It’s not a dive bar. It’s not a fancy bar. It is a beautiful bar, with all the woodwork and such. You can get a $4 pint of Coors Banquet beer, you can get the most perfect pint of Guinness every time. I like to say that Guinness is our signature dish.

What kind of actual dishes can I expect to eat at The Monto?
You can expect modern Irish food, so items like shepherd’s-pie potato skins or a type of chicken sandwich that you get at every gas station in Ireland.

The Monto in Old City / Photograph by Laura Swartz

You famously have never had TVs at Fergie’s. Can I catch a game at The Monto?
Yes, my business partners are all into sports, so I’ll let them have their fun. Plus, I don’t mind making money. [Laughs] But I will, never, ever allow TVs at Fergie’s. All of a sudden Jeopardy! comes on and I’m supposed to turn the sound up? Fuck off.

When you were growing up in Dublin, did you aspire to open an Irish pub?
God, I had no aspirations at all to do anything. [Loud background noises begin, interrupting the interview.]

What is that? Are you on your bike again? I’ll never forget the time I interviewed you and you were on your frigging bike in Center City.
I melted some candle grease onto the ground, and now I’m trying to get rid of that while we’re talking, and then you heard the door slam as well.

Oh.
Is that okay? [More background noise — it sounds like a shower.]

Please tell me you’re not taking a shower during this interview.
No. I’m watering my plants outside. Is that okay?

Are you at your house? I remember that you moved out of Bella Vista some time ago.
I’m smack-dab in the middle of Fishtown, right behind Murph’s and across the road from Johnny Brenda’s. And one of my favorite new places: Secondhand Ranch, a country-western store and bar that has a lot of live music. It’s like Nashville. Not that I’ve ever been to Nashville, but I recently went to New Orleans and enjoyed the music. The food, though? It’s like, oh yeah, let’s have a piece of fried shrimp on bread². Fuck’s sake, get over yourselves.

What do you remember about your childhood in Dublin?
We never had anything extra, but there was never anything lacking. We never went on a holiday to Spain or anything like that. It was more like, oh, we’re going to see Uncle Larry in Galway. We never went out for a meal unless we were traveling to see Uncle Larry in Galway and stopping for a sandwich and a cup of tea along the way.

Why did you come to the States?
I was 24 and just in a fucking stupid job at some place called Burgerland in Dublin. I had a pen pal in Fox Chase whose family had work for me here. I arrived in Philly on a Saturday night — by Sunday morning, I was at work at El Taco Grande in the food court at the Cherry Hill Mall. Then I wound up working at a bunch of Philly bars, eventually getting a job at McGlinchey’s³ in 1987, which was my last bartending job before opening Fergie’s.

Photograph by Dave Moser

Fergie’s is pretty much an institution now. But tell me the origin story.
I really wanted to open a bar of my own, and the cheapest way to get into it at the time seemed to be this spot that was the Hoffman House⁴ for 70 years on the 1200 block of Sansom, which was absolutely the crappiest block in all of Center City. All kinds of drugs and prostitution and thefts right there. But it was cheap! There was crime and dirt and destruction, but I saw a rainbow, Victor! We opened in November 1994, and we had a line around the block from the beginning. People were excited to have a new bar, in part because we hadn’t had a good bar opening in a while, and I knew a lot of people, as did my original business partner, Wajih Abed, who was a bartender at Bookbinder’s. When Wajih died in 2017, I spoke at the funeral and said, “We did it, Wajih!”

You certainly did.
And Fergie’s spawned so much talent, including my partner now, Jim, who was working in the kitchen at Fergie’s on opening night. Thirty-two years later, we own a few bars together, including The Jim in South Philly, which is named after him. And Casey Parker and Joe Gunn, who bartended at Fergie’s, now own all the Pistola’s restaurants in Philly as well as Trouble’s End Brewing in the suburbs.

Fergie’s Pub has endured five different mayoral administrations. Have things gotten better or worse for small business owners?
It has gone back and forth, but I am a little annoyed with the city at the moment, and with America’s 250th. It’s like, you know, we’re all about the visitors, we’re all about the tourists. What about the bloody people here? Look at Market Street — it’s all cleaned up and tidied up right now because we’re getting tourists. What will become of it later? Am I too grumpy?

It’s fine. Grumpy makes for good interviews. The Monto is your first bar in Old City. What do you think of the neighborhood?
There are cobblestones everywhere! The one good thing I will say about cobblestones is that they are honest, right? You’re fucking driving around a normal street, you hit a pothole, you’re fucked. But at least you know that if you’re entering a cobblestoned street, be prepared to shake.

What are the three best-selling beers at Fergie’s?
Oh my God. There’s Guinness — and then everything else. My bar sales chart looks like a handgun: Guinness is the barrel; literally everything else is the grip. And Guinness is on fire at the moment, worldwide. We’ve tripled our Guinness sales in the last three years.

Why?
Kim Kardashian.

You’re kidding.
I’m not. Kim and other young women like her have been drinking Guinness and then talking about it. And there’s this TikTok trend called “Split the G” — the G in Guinness⁵. And all of this is making people realize that Guinness is actually really good, plus it’s lower in alcohol and medium in carbs and calories. It’s practically a health drink, Victor. [Laughs]

My son, a fledgling bartender, wants to know the trick to pouring the perfect Guinness.
Here’s the answer: It’s intention. It’s the effort to do so. You know, I’m out here watering my plants, and people say if you talk to your plants, they’ll do better. A lot of people would say that’s fucking stupid. But if you think of it as intention — I’m talking to my plants because I fucking love them. I want them to be healthy.

I love how you just connected pouring Guinness to the fact that you’ve spent this interview watering plants.
Cheers. I’ll see you for a pint at The Monto. Bring your son!

Footnotes:

1. The Monto was a notorious red-light district in Dublin popularized by a 1960s song by the Dubliners. ↩
2. He is referring to a po’boy, one of the town’s iconic sandwiches. ↩
3. Carey and his Fergie’s and Monto partner, Jim McNamara, tried to buy this smoky Philly dive bar when it was for sale last year but were shocked to learn the price tag: $2.8 million. ↩
4. The Hoffman House was a German restaurant whose vibe the Inquirer described in 1982 as “a Bavarian men’s club.” ↩
5. The idea is that your first gulp of the pint should be large enough that the line between the head and the dark beer is in the middle of the G on the glass. ↩

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Published as “Philly’s Favorite Bar Owner Will Serve You Now” in the August 2026 issue of Philadelphia magazine.