MAR_APR_2014_FINAL_3-15-16

Callaghan’s Irish Social Club by Tim Acosta —Rouses Marketing Director

Callaghan’s burger and potato salad.

E very year, for nearly 70 years, Callaghan’s Irish Social Club, a neighborhood pub in the Oakleigh Garden District of Mobile, Alabama, has put on the biggest St. Patrick’s Day party in Mobile. Their street party has become so popular over the years it’s now the biggest St. Patrick’s Day celebration anywhere in the state. But Callaghan’s claim to fame isn’t St. Patrick’s Day. Callaghan’s was named Best Burger in Alabama by USA Today. Now, I’ve cooked and eaten my fair share of burgers. And I will come right out and say it, I make the best burger on Hwy. 1. And I can sniff out the best anywhere else, from the Cheeseburger in Paradise at Margaritaville in Key West, Florida, to the burger- baked potato combo at Yo Mama’s Bar & Grill, a hole-in-the-wall in the French Quarter. Callaghan’s had me at hello. The pub sits on the corner of Marine and Charleston streets in a 1920s-era building that once housed a meat market. The grocer in me took that as a good sign. Green- and-white tiles line the floor and customer photos line the walls. They even have a photo of Jimmy Buffet back in the day. The place has character. I’d read that singer-songwriters and bands perform at Callaghan’s at least two nights a week (Will Kimbrough, who toured with Jimmy Buffett, played Callaghan’s; so did the Alabama Shakes.) My wife, Cindy, and I went on a Friday, and the stage was empty. The bartender told us Sunday’s their big night, Thursday’s next best. We weren’t there for the music. We were there for the burgers. And the

Guinness. And the whisky. All of which were excellent. You can order your burger topped with American, cheddar, Swiss, Provolone or Pepper Jack. No fries here, this is a potato chip-potato salad place. Friends in Mobile tell me there’s a lunch special called the LA Burger. LA stands for Lower Alabama, not Louisiana. The patty is a mixture of ground beef and Conecuh sausage. You can only get it at lunch. Go early, before they run out.

Tim and Cindy Acosta drinking Guinness at the Guiness Storehouse in Dublin, Ireland.

In New Orleans, one of the best spots to watch football, any version of football, is Finn McCool’s, just up the street from our Carrollton store in Mid City. Finn’s is a home-away-from-home for Irish expatriates and Mid City neighbors who come for a pint of Guinness, a game of trivia, to watch a match, or to chatter with owners Stephen and Pauline Patterson, who are originally from Belfast. The bar even has its own soccer team, Finn McCool’s Football Club, which was made famous in the book, Finn McCool’s Football Club: The Birth, Death, and Resurrection of a Pub Soccer Team in the City of the Dead by Stephen Rea. FINN MCOOL'S

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