Markeshia Ricks Photos
Manager Kasprzycki: Shepherd’s pie on special days.
Spot the Irish beer.
For 10 years, Christy’s Irish Pub has lived up to the Irish in its name. But as it celebrates its first decade in business this weekend, the pub is looking to a future with a little more Irish-American.
The pub has been running special promos in celebration of its 10th anniversary, including a nightly customer appreciation open bar.
“It’s just our way of saying, ‘Thank you for being here,’” said Manager Dayna Kasprzyck. “We get a lot of neighborhood people. A lot of the same people in every day, and we just want to give back to everyone for being such great patrons over the years.”
The pub is not completely abandoning its Irish roots: It’s growing from an “Irish” pub to an “Irish-American” one. Friday marks the celebration of the official date that the pub opened. And there are plans to celebrate in style with a big party. People can come at 8 p.m. to learn how to “pour a perfect pint” of Guinness from the beer company’s representative. At 10 p.m. Irish Celtic and American band, Mclean Avenue Band, will play until close. There’s no cover, and the band will play Irish music, but also perform covers of other popular music.
Kasprzycki acknowledged that the patrons enjoying the celebration this week are likely not the ones the pub, started by native Irishman Christy Mulhall, set out to attract in 2006. The Irish customer base looking to have a bit of Shepherd’s pie, Irish breakfast and a pint Guinness — people looking for a bit of taste of home — has been joined by people with other roots drawn to downtown living.
She said many of the customers today are looking for the pub experience, but don’t necessarily have any connections to Ireland. They’re just people looking for a comfortable place to drink.
“Our customer base has changed over the years,” Kasprzycki, who has been at the pub four years. “When I started working here there was a very large Irish community in the neighborhood. I think a lot of those people have grown up, they have kids now, they’ve moved out of the city, and so that’s changed.
Patrons on a Wednesday afternoon.
“The Irish community in New Haven has grown a little bit smaller unfortunately, so we see an influx of new people in the neighborhood — grad students, local people who have just moved here,” she added. “We have a lot of people who just move here for work that we’ve become friends with and become regulars here. And like on weekends, we’ve just seen more of a crowd of new people in the neighborhood. And I think a lot of that has to be attributed to downtown New Haven changing.”
She said a lot of the low-key, neighborhood bars and pubs with relaxed dress codes in the more central part of downtown have closed. She pointed out that several of the bars that cater to a less upscale crowd have found a home on or near Orange Street.
“A lot more people are coming down this way,” she said. “We have us. We have Trinity [formerly O’Toole’s]. We have Barcade. There’s another bar opening on Center Street soon. The Regal Beagle. I think we now have the majority of the bars that are within close walking reach as opposed to downtown. And we’re much more relaxed. You don’t have to be dressed up to come in.”
The changing crowd means that Christy’s has had to change too. For one, new customers don’t drink as much Irish beer.
“We have a lot of lines dedicated to local breweries,” Kasprzycki said. “In that since we’ve moved away from the Irish bit. Irish bars tend to say, ‘We have Harp, we have Guinness, we have Smithwicks — drink what you got.’ But we’ve become a little bit more accommodating to the masses. People still come in and ask for Harp [an Irish lager], but we’re not the kind of bar that dedicates a line to Harp because not enough people drink it.”
In addition to Guinness, Christy’s now serves up brew from Stony Creek, Thimble Island, Outer Limits Brewing Co., Two Roads and New England Brewing Co. You can also order mixed cocktails, which is not the typical Irish pub way, Kasprzyci pointed out.
Another change has been the pub’s menu. Once upon a time, it was a place you could order Shepherd’s pie all year long. But not anymore.
“It’s something we’ll do around St. Patrick’s Day,” Kasprzycki said. “It’s something on the menu special for then. But year round having in stock all the ingredients to make Shepherd’s pie? Looking at the numbers, it’s just not something that sells that much here anymore.”
She said you can still come to Christy’s for a brunch of proper Irish Breakfast. But you also find an array of burgers, sandwiches, appetizers and entrees.
Thomas McMillian Photo
Christy Mulhall, founder, namesake, and no longer the owner.
What’s also different — what’s a little less Irish about Christy’s — is who’s running the joint. In March Curtis Packer took over ownership of the pub from Teresa Consivine, who is the daughter of Christy Mulhall.
Mulhall, who once was a co-owner of Anna Liffey’s, still comes over to hang out and enjoy the bar, rather than run it.
“I’m thrilled that the place is still standing and that I can enjoy the business that I built 10 years ago,” Mulhall said via a statement he provided through Kasprzycki.
While building on its Irish roots, Christy’s is by no means abandoning them. The pub is where die-hard Arsenal football (soccer) fans still get their fix, and that won’t change. Christy’s remains the only Arsenal bar in the state, and is the home bar to the New Haven Gooners Supporter Club. The pub will continue to show all the Premier League games and do brunch and drink specials for the fans, including the upcoming match this Saturday at 10 a.m.
“We’ve been known as Christy’s Irish Pub and I think we will still always be an Irish pub,” Kasprzycki said. “But I think we are opening ourselves up to being more of just a general public house. The vibe is always going to be one of a pub. We’re going to always have Guinness. We’re always going to have standard Irish things.
“I think we will always be regarded as a pub but we’re kind of just, I guess, becoming a little bit of a more Americanized pub,” she added. “We’ll always have the traditional pub food, we’ll always have Irish breakfast, we’ll always have all of those things. The walls are going to stay the same, the county flags will always be up. The pictures will always be up. That’s not so much changing. But I think it just being regarded as solely and Irish pub is not so much of what we are anymore.”
"Our customer base has changed over the years," Kasprzycki, who has been at the pub four years. "When I started working here there was a very large Irish community in the neighborhood. I think a lot of those people have grown up, they have kids now, they've moved out of the city, and so that's changed.
And a lot of people have been pushed out due to the high Rents.