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McGinnity's Restaurant and Party House's distinctive exterior suggests an Irish cottage was air-dropped from the Erin countryside onto Route 104.
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Nearly 50 years ago, James “Seamus” McGinnity set out to recreate a piece of his homeland in an Irish pub on West Ridge Road.
Seamus, with his wife Bridget “Bridie” McGinnity, opened McGinnity’s Restaurant in 1975 in a former linoleum and tile shop whose distinctive peaked roofing and white siding looks as if an Irish cottage were air-dropped from the Erin countryside onto Route 104.
But it became an honest-to-God Irish bar and a family affair. Their four children — Maggie, Jimmy, John, and Kevin — became built-in staff as soon as they came of age. During the heyday of Kodak, the bar stools were routinely occupied by laborers unwinding with a post-work pint.
One of the stools was reserved for Seamus, who could often be found bellied up to his own bar after a day’s work. The wall beside it is plastered with a collage of union stickers, a testament to his 32-year career as a union electrician with IBEW Local 86. A portrait of Seamus hangs prominently in the center.
Seamus died in 2007 and left the bar to Bridie in his will, with the request that she keep it running.
She did. Until now.
Recently, Bridie put McGinnity’s up for sale at an asking price of $500,000, and now waits to close the book on what is believed to be the longest family-run Irish bar in Rochester.
“I’m going to be 85 next month, I’m too old for this business,” Bridie said, sitting at a table inside the dimly-lit barroom. “I want out. My health is good, I want to be able to do other things.”
Selling the place was a decision she had been mulling over for months, she said. Then came the new year, and with that, the chance to turn over a new leaf and spend more time with her six great-grandchildren.
The industry is changing, and Bridie, who keeps all of the books for the bar, wants nothing to do with social media and all of the other modern technology necessary to run a bar nowadays.
“This technology, it’s way above me,” she said. “Every day it’s something new, and you gotta do it on that damn computer.”
Bridie’s daughter Maggie McGinnity-Fitzgibbon grew up in the bar alongside her brothers. The idea was floated that she or her siblings could buy the place, but they, too, chose to let it go
“Dad willed the business to mom, and we support her and do what she asked of us,” McGinnity-Fitzgibbon said. “This is her ultimate decision and this is what she wanted to do, and we support her 100 percent.”
Save for a “Dragon’s Ascent” video arcade machine and some updates to the taplist, McGinnity’s is about the same as it was in the 1970s, if not a little worse for wear. The black leather bar stools are well-creased. Many of the tables wobble. The hardwood floor of the party room, a large addition built onto the back of the bar where McGinnity-Fitzgibbon had her wedding reception in 1986, still bears subtle burn marks from a 2005 fire.
It’s a place that’s been lived in, where debates were held, plans were hatched, friendships were born, fights ensued, and countless beers were guzzled over the years.
On a recent Thursday afternoon, the regular crowd trickled in. A cast of characters, almost all of whom seemed to be on a first-name basis.
Conversation undulated in an endless din between politics, sports, work, and family. Among the topics were the Washington Redskins changing their name to the Commanders and whether one regular would be more sympathetic to Donald Trump if he were a Bills fan.
For the long-timers, McGinnity’s is more than a bar. It’s a community hub, a family.
For Carrie Hayes, it’s home. Hayes, a preschool teacher by trade, began picking up shifts at McGinnity’s about five years ago. She said she was in the midst of some personal trauma, and the community at McGinnity’s, and particularly Bridie, made her feel whole.
“I just cherish her,” Hayes said. “She runs a tough ship, and she expects the best of you.”
Hayes said she’ll mourn the bar after it changes hands, but that she’s willing to let go if it’s what’s best for Bridie, a woman she describes as one of the hardest workers she’s ever met.
“I have to remember, this had to be the hardest decision of her life,” Hayes said. “She deserves this time.”
Rich McMann feels the same. The McGinnitys have been a part of McMann’s life for 40 years, ever since his father, Lee, opened a collision shop behind the bar. McMann was 10 then, and even now Bridie still calls him “Lee’s boy.”
“I remember when Seamus died, it was one of the few times my father called me out of the blue,” McMann said. “Seamus would give you the skin off his back if he could, and if you needed it. He was that kind of person.”
McMann no longer drinks, but still pulls up to McGinnity’s often.
“I still just enjoy coming here,” McMann said. “You meet all different people, I just met a guy from Michigan. And there’s also the age disparity. You get guys in their 30s, and the people in their 80s that have been coming since the beginning.”
The memories built over the years are tender to McGinnity-Fitzgibbon. When telling a story of the first St. Patrick’s Day her daughters worked the bar, she stopped abruptly, bursting into tears.
“They were beside themselves excited, and my dad took my oldest by the arm and walked her around saying, ‘This is my granddaughter,’” she said, wiping away tears. “It was just really special.”
On the bar top in front of Seamus’s bar stool is a metal placard honoring his memory.
With the bar up for sale comes everything in it, save for whatever trinkets and mementos the McGinnitys take with them. It’s a turnkey operation for someone looking to open their own bar, but there’s no stipulation in the sale of it staying McGinnity’s Restaurant, or even a bar for that matter.
McGinnity-Fitzgibbon said she had a lot of ideas of what she hopes the bar will become under new ownership, and that some of the history of the bar could be kept alive.
But Bridie said she’s ready to fully let go, and when the time comes to hand over the deed, she will deliver it with a simple salutation: “Good luck.”
“I don’t have thoughts, whoever buys it, I wish them luck, do whatever they want to do,” she said. “My feeling is like when you give somebody a gift, you don’t tell somebody what they have to do with it. It’s the same when you’re selling something.”
For now, the McGinnitys are preparing for what could be the final St. Patrick’s Day at the bar. Until a sale goes through, it’s business as usual. Regulars still belly up to the bar, made from a repurposed piece of gymnasium flooring from the old Edison Tech High School. The party room is still booked several times a week.
Bridie, like she has for decades, will keep the operation moving until the last pint is poured.
“You know,” she said, “it’s like this: once you start doing it, it becomes your job, so you just do it.”
Gino Fanelli is a CITY staff writer. He can be reached at (585) 775-9692 or [email protected].
Seamus, with his wife Bridget “Bridie” McGinnity, opened McGinnity’s Restaurant in 1975 in a former linoleum and tile shop whose distinctive peaked roofing and white siding looks as if an Irish cottage were air-dropped from the Erin countryside onto Route 104.
But it became an honest-to-God Irish bar and a family affair. Their four children — Maggie, Jimmy, John, and Kevin — became built-in staff as soon as they came of age. During the heyday of Kodak, the bar stools were routinely occupied by laborers unwinding with a post-work pint.
One of the stools was reserved for Seamus, who could often be found bellied up to his own bar after a day’s work. The wall beside it is plastered with a collage of union stickers, a testament to his 32-year career as a union electrician with IBEW Local 86. A portrait of Seamus hangs prominently in the center.
Seamus died in 2007 and left the bar to Bridie in his will, with the request that she keep it running.
She did. Until now.
Recently, Bridie put McGinnity’s up for sale at an asking price of $500,000, and now waits to close the book on what is believed to be the longest family-run Irish bar in Rochester.
“I’m going to be 85 next month, I’m too old for this business,” Bridie said, sitting at a table inside the dimly-lit barroom. “I want out. My health is good, I want to be able to do other things.”
Selling the place was a decision she had been mulling over for months, she said. Then came the new year, and with that, the chance to turn over a new leaf and spend more time with her six great-grandchildren.
The industry is changing, and Bridie, who keeps all of the books for the bar, wants nothing to do with social media and all of the other modern technology necessary to run a bar nowadays.
“This technology, it’s way above me,” she said. “Every day it’s something new, and you gotta do it on that damn computer.”
Bridie’s daughter Maggie McGinnity-Fitzgibbon grew up in the bar alongside her brothers. The idea was floated that she or her siblings could buy the place, but they, too, chose to let it go
“Dad willed the business to mom, and we support her and do what she asked of us,” McGinnity-Fitzgibbon said. “This is her ultimate decision and this is what she wanted to do, and we support her 100 percent.”
Save for a “Dragon’s Ascent” video arcade machine and some updates to the taplist, McGinnity’s is about the same as it was in the 1970s, if not a little worse for wear. The black leather bar stools are well-creased. Many of the tables wobble. The hardwood floor of the party room, a large addition built onto the back of the bar where McGinnity-Fitzgibbon had her wedding reception in 1986, still bears subtle burn marks from a 2005 fire.
It’s a place that’s been lived in, where debates were held, plans were hatched, friendships were born, fights ensued, and countless beers were guzzled over the years.
On a recent Thursday afternoon, the regular crowd trickled in. A cast of characters, almost all of whom seemed to be on a first-name basis.
Conversation undulated in an endless din between politics, sports, work, and family. Among the topics were the Washington Redskins changing their name to the Commanders and whether one regular would be more sympathetic to Donald Trump if he were a Bills fan.
For the long-timers, McGinnity’s is more than a bar. It’s a community hub, a family.
For Carrie Hayes, it’s home. Hayes, a preschool teacher by trade, began picking up shifts at McGinnity’s about five years ago. She said she was in the midst of some personal trauma, and the community at McGinnity’s, and particularly Bridie, made her feel whole.
“I just cherish her,” Hayes said. “She runs a tough ship, and she expects the best of you.”
Hayes said she’ll mourn the bar after it changes hands, but that she’s willing to let go if it’s what’s best for Bridie, a woman she describes as one of the hardest workers she’s ever met.
“I have to remember, this had to be the hardest decision of her life,” Hayes said. “She deserves this time.”
Rich McMann feels the same. The McGinnitys have been a part of McMann’s life for 40 years, ever since his father, Lee, opened a collision shop behind the bar. McMann was 10 then, and even now Bridie still calls him “Lee’s boy.”
“I remember when Seamus died, it was one of the few times my father called me out of the blue,” McMann said. “Seamus would give you the skin off his back if he could, and if you needed it. He was that kind of person.”
McMann no longer drinks, but still pulls up to McGinnity’s often.
“I still just enjoy coming here,” McMann said. “You meet all different people, I just met a guy from Michigan. And there’s also the age disparity. You get guys in their 30s, and the people in their 80s that have been coming since the beginning.”
The memories built over the years are tender to McGinnity-Fitzgibbon. When telling a story of the first St. Patrick’s Day her daughters worked the bar, she stopped abruptly, bursting into tears.
“They were beside themselves excited, and my dad took my oldest by the arm and walked her around saying, ‘This is my granddaughter,’” she said, wiping away tears. “It was just really special.”
On the bar top in front of Seamus’s bar stool is a metal placard honoring his memory.
With the bar up for sale comes everything in it, save for whatever trinkets and mementos the McGinnitys take with them. It’s a turnkey operation for someone looking to open their own bar, but there’s no stipulation in the sale of it staying McGinnity’s Restaurant, or even a bar for that matter.
McGinnity-Fitzgibbon said she had a lot of ideas of what she hopes the bar will become under new ownership, and that some of the history of the bar could be kept alive.
But Bridie said she’s ready to fully let go, and when the time comes to hand over the deed, she will deliver it with a simple salutation: “Good luck.”
“I don’t have thoughts, whoever buys it, I wish them luck, do whatever they want to do,” she said. “My feeling is like when you give somebody a gift, you don’t tell somebody what they have to do with it. It’s the same when you’re selling something.”
For now, the McGinnitys are preparing for what could be the final St. Patrick’s Day at the bar. Until a sale goes through, it’s business as usual. Regulars still belly up to the bar, made from a repurposed piece of gymnasium flooring from the old Edison Tech High School. The party room is still booked several times a week.
Bridie, like she has for decades, will keep the operation moving until the last pint is poured.
“You know,” she said, “it’s like this: once you start doing it, it becomes your job, so you just do it.”
Gino Fanelli is a CITY staff writer. He can be reached at (585) 775-9692 or [email protected].
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