Irish Restaurateur Looks Forward To St. Patrick’s Days Of Old

PORT WASHINGTON, NY — Under normal circumstances Irish restaurateur Connie O’Reilly would have spent Wednesday afternoon preparing for the evening dinner crowd inside his restaurant, Finn MacCool’s in Port Washington. But this year, like 2020, was different due to COVID-19.

Instead, he reminisced over old photographs from past St. Patrick’s Days, missing the interaction with his regular patrons and the festive atmosphere, all the while hoping next year will return to the way it was.

“I’m hopeful,” said the soft-spoken O’Reilly, a native of County Cavan, Ireland, in a phone interview. “I want to get back to that normalcy where you can actually be around people again.”

The last time St. Patrick’s Day was celebrated at Finn MacCool’s, it was two years ago, and the Petrie School of Irish Dancing performed.

Wednesday’s dinner would not have been quite the same as St. Patrick’s Day two years ago, mostly due to social distancing, facial masks, temperature checks and other health protocols, and no music or performances were scheduled, however, it was a start and something O’Reilly was looking forward to.

But on Saturday, O’Reilly said he and his wife, Geraldine, who runs the restaurant with him, learned that an employee tested positive for COVID-19, and they were forced to temporarily shutter the restaurant while it was sanitized by an elite cleaning company.

“We couldn’t take any chances,” he said.

O’Reilly said that the majority of his staff tested negative for the virus, but because of the positive cases, they must all now quarantine for 10 days in accordance with state Department of Health guidelines. He said the staff who tested positive for the virus are doing well, and that all the employees will not return to work unless they test negative for the virus.

“It would have been terrible if we had not been told about it and then go full-steam ahead into St. Patrick’s Day, and a couple of hundred [people] got infected, and it spread into the community,” he said, adding, “As bad as it is, it could be a lot worse.”

Although it was a second devastating economic blow to his business, O’Reilly said it was something that he had to do to be responsible. To him, it was a decision that concerned the health and safety of his staff and patrons.

“Their health is more important to us than the business,” he said.

As COVID-19 spread quickly through New York last year, Gov. Andrew Cuomo ordered restaurants and bars to close on March 16, 2020, on the eve of St. Patrick’s Day, leaving many patrons to celebrate the holiday at home in quarantine. In something that would have been unthinkable before the pandemic struck, the restaurant was empty on the biggest night of the year for the Irish who earn a living in the hospitality business.

With state restrictions closing the dining room to patrons, O’Reilly moved forward with take out orders, and as other restrictions loosened over the last year, business began to improve more and more, but it still has not returned to its pre-pandemic state due to a combination of the economy and restrictions, like the last call moving from 2 a.m. to 11 p.m.

It’s one year later and business is only running at about 30%, when he needs at least 75% to break even, O’Reilly said.

“We have lost a lot of money this year,” he said of the restaurant which he has operated for 37 years.

Luckily, the restaurant did not lose a lot of food, as the news came on Saturday and its regular food deliveries are on Monday, so the shipment was canceled — his distributor was very understanding about the situation, O’Reilly said.

Like the deep cleaning, many of the pandemic-related expenses O’Reilly has encountered over the last year, were not covered by insurance, but he opined that there might be grant money available soon through the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan that just signed into law.

In the meantime, O’Reilly said he expects to have Finn MacCool’s up-and-running within two weeks. He opened it in 1984, naming it after the ancient hero of Irish legends because he always liked the story. The giant MacCool is said to have defeated many enemies until he was finally killed in heroic fashion. But it has also been said that he sleeps in a cave and will only awaken in Ireland’s darkest hour.

“He’s like the Paul Bunyan of Ireland in that he was a larger-than-life hero,” said O’Reilly.

When asked if he believed he and the restaurant are living up to the hero’s name, O’Reilly weighed in, “If it comes from the heart, it has to be good,” he said.