Meehan’s on Matanzas Irish Pub and Seafood Restaurant
by Lucy Smith
My friend Jody [who sports a shock of Irish red hair] and I were going to have lunch together. She suggested we meet at this place in town called Meehan’s Irish Pub. Just the word Pub begins the thought process of a fried, laid back good time, ‘it can wait till tomorrow, and ‘I’ll have another!’ But, this was lunch. My first thought was this could be trouble. Fun-time, joyful Jody with whom I had much catching up to do mixed with the middle of the workday at a Pub meant my workday would be over and “happy hour” had begun.
‘Wow, this is nice,’ I recall saying to Jody. ‘They actually have traditional Irish food.’ I ordered the Corned Beef and Cabbage. ‘This is really good!’ This was gastronomy at its best. (No, not the effect that one may get from eating cabbage.) According to Wikipedia, Gastronomy is the art and science of good eating. John Meehan explains it as, “Gastronomy: the art of prep and presentation of the culinary experience.” Combine gastronomy, a pub and the result is the “Gastropub,” the hottest new trend in the food industry.
“The new trend is: ‘Let’s put out a product that is a gourmet meal’,” said Meehan’s owner John Meehan. “People see a pub and they know they are going to be comfortable with it. They know what it is. I said, We’re going to call it an Irish Pub. We’re going to under promise and over deliver. Even though we’re not in Ireland, we’re going to be as authentic an Irish Pub that we possibly can. If I called this Meehan’s Seafood Restaurant, you don’t really know what it is. You don’t know what you’re getting into. You don’t know what a Meehan is. But when you see the word Pub you know what it is. The person generally thinks, “Okay it’s a comfortable environment…casual…you know what kind of food you are going to get. A gastropub has taken that to the next level and are combining fresh ingredients and artistically styled food, artisanal presentations and getting more on the culinary side,” says John.
With a freezer that is mostly used for bagged ice, every Meehan’s product is hand-breaded and all sauces are made in-house. Everything that they can possibly do from scratch – they do from scratch. There is virtually nothing in a can. All breads are specialty ordered from a small artisanal bakery to Meehan’s specifications.
“The French Dip starts with a 109 full prime rib of beef and we slowly cook that off and slice it as thin as possible and you’re getting the best possible product that you can get. We can buy our roast beef and slice it. It’s much easier. But, it’s not going to be the same. We hand cut all of our French fries. They go through a long process; through a water bath three, sometimes as many as five times then they sit, then they’re cooled, then blanched halfway then they’re cooked again. That’s difficult,” says John. “It’s much easier to take a bag out of a freezer and throw them into a fryer but that is not going to make you World Class. That’s not going to make you stand out above the competition. That’s not going to elevate you to a level that we want to be at. I’m not saying that’s where we’re at but that’s what we’re striving for.”
“We have a specific corned beef that comes out of a purveyor in Chicago. It is the only one that we will ever, ever use. For our Fish & Chips we use a local flounder because we know we can get it fresh every single day. Fish & Chips is normally cod or scrod, something from the Northeast. But we made the decision that we want to be local, support local sustainability. If we were to get cod or scrod, we’d have to settle for a frozen product, and we won’t do that.”
“Some are family and grandma’s recipes that have been passed down from my family. Some are variations of twists on cuisine that I learned in New Orleans,” explained John. “Oysters Meehan, that is definitely a New Orleans type recipe. Shrimp Floridian, that is definitely an inspiration. The conviction to really go for a raw bar is borrowing from New Orleans that was a big part of my past.”
Not looking to relocate to a modern city, after being displaced from New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina, John’s fondness for the architecture, the feel, the culture of New Orleans was what he wanted. As a passionate sailor he had to be on the water.
“From the time that I turned down King Street, I said, ‘Wow.’ I looked at it as a town that has so much potential. Not that’s it’s not already great in so many ways—so great, relatively undiscovered. I looked at the opportunity.”
“I kept on coming back to this building. I loved this building. You walked into the place and it said to you ‘Irish Pub.’ Its situation on the Bay Front, the outside architecture, the inside had great bones. From its pressed tin ceilings and the stained glass—all of those things that are so hard to duplicate if you were going to go into a random space,” said John.
The walls are decorated with memorabilia from John’s life and family. A lithograph from Dublin that’s about a hundred years old that’s been in his family hangs in the hallway. Just a few steps away is an antique telephone booth that’s the resting place of a goat from Teddy Roosevelt’s Collection. “We have authentication of it,” says John. “The goat was shot by Teddy in Yellowstone National Park. Half of the things in here are my books, my family’s or came from my house.”
The original staircase takes you up to a different area that has the feel of a Victorian Irish Pub. A full bar complete with pool tables, is surrounded by what were once the bedrooms. You recognize that it was a residence at one time. The second floor windows look out to one of the most fantastic views of the Bay. Downstairs the main bar and seating areas are made of little nooks and corners John referrers to as ‘snuggs.’
“This is a lesson that I learned at a young age. You can be the best at whatever you do but if you don’t have a team behind you are always going to hit a brick wall. This place has my namesake; it’s a part of me but it’s everybody. From Reggie, the bartender, (from county Monahan, Ireland) with one of the greatest broguess you’ve ever heard, to the opening staff and my chef, Tom Patterson.
“We will never sell a ‘Green Beer.’ It will not happen in my pub. We’re more into bringing tradition and realism, and showing the cultural aspect. We insist on pouring a proper pint of Guinness. We only use an imperial pint glass. We will only use the 20 oz proper imperial pint glass; we will always make sure that it is poured correctly,” said John. “Before we opened we had the Guinness rep from Dublin, Ireland come in and give a 2-hour lecture. Everyone said, ‘Why are we spending 2 hours to learn to pour a beer?’ They realize why it is so important. Because our clientele demands it. If somebody drinks and they go to a place and it’s not a proper pint, they’re probably not going to complain about it—they’re just not going to come back.”
Tom Patterson is a classically trained chef who had several of his own businesses in the past. He believes in the same approach. “Take the extra steps to do it right is going to give you a better product.” About fifty-percent of the menu items are Patterson’s own recipes. Patterson has lived here for several years and also spent a lot of time in Key West. He is well known for and has been awarded “Best Key-Lime Pie” in Key West!
“As soon as we met, we probably spoke for about three hours because we had the same passion for food,” said John. “I’m a foodie. I love food. I love to cook and shop for food. I never wanted to make it a profession because I never wanted to lose the zeal that I had for it. I never want to come home and say that’s what I do for a living or never wanted to do that. I wanted to come home and be excited that I was in the kitchen.”
John Meehan has definitely taken his passion and created a top-notch restaurant from the inside out, that not only has great authentic Irish food but is also a great place to relax and enjoy the very comfortable surroundings. Next time you want to catch up with a friend over lunch you’ll know exactly where you should meet. But, plan on staying awhile. You’ll be glad you did.
Meehan’s on Matanzas Irish Pub and Seafood Restaurant is located one block south of the Fort, at the corner of 20 Avenida Menendez and Hypolita Street, Saint Augustine or visit meehansirishpub.com