McGuire's Irish Pub

McGuire's Irish Pub
Cuisine	Pub fare
Location	600 East Gregory Street (Pensacola) 33 Highway 98 (Destin)
Established	1977
Owner	McGuire Martin
Chef	Jim Martin
Slogan	"Feasting, Imbibery & Debauchery"
Phone number	(850) 433-6789
Website	http://www.mcguiresirishpub.com/
Map <googlemap lat="30.417814" lon="-87.202048" type="map" zoom="15" width="288" height="288"> 30.395525, -86.511741, 33 Highway 98 30.417952, -87.202365, 600 E. Gregory Street </googlemap>

McGuire's Irish Pub is a popular Pensacola restaurant and local landmark. Founded by McGuire and Molly Martin in 1977, the restaurant was originally located in Town & Country Plaza. McGuire's moved to its current Gregory Street location in 1982. It is known for its on-site brewery and patron traditions, like kissing a stuffed moosehead and stapling autographed dollar-bill "tips" to the ceiling. A second location has also opened in Destin.

Locations

McGuire's Pensacola location, at 600 East Gregory Street, is located in a 1927 building which was originally a firehouse and later the Old Firehouse Drive-In. The 20,000 square foot building has 400 seats in various themed rooms such as the Pipers Den, Notre Dame Room, The Irish Links Room and the Ruprecht O'Tolf Wine Cellar. There is also a private dining room where the Irish Politicians Club meets.

A second location opened in Destin in 1996.

Food and drink

McGuire's offers steak and seafood along with Irish cuisine and pub fare.

The restaurant was named Steak House of the Year by the National Beef Council in 1998. McGuire's advertises its steaks as "Certified Angus corn-fed beef, never frozen and hand cut daily." McGuire's menu also features more than 20 hamburgers, including the $100 "Grand Burger", made with filet mignon and served with caviar and champagne.

McGuire's also operates its own brewery, brewing five regular beers and one seasonal variety, as well as root beer.

The restaurant has won numerous Florida Trend Magazine's Golden Spoon Awards and Wine Spectator Magazine Awards of Excellence.

Traditions

McGuire's has a number of prominent traditions:

Dollar bills

Stapled to the walls and ceilings of McGuire's Pensacola location are more than 750,000 one dollar bills. According the restaurant, when Molly McGuire received a dollar bill as her first tip, she tacked it up behind the bar for good luck. Other patrons "added to the collection" and it soon became a McGuire's tradition.

Kissing the moose

First-time visitors and special guests are encouraged to kiss a large stuffed moose head mounted near the music stage.

Sponsorships

Since 1988, McGuire's has sponsored the McGuire's Pipe Band.

Each year, McGuire's sponsors the McGuire's St. Patrick's Day 5K Run, which is billed as the largest prediction run in America.

Restroom signage controversy

Since McGuire's first opened in Pensacola in 1977, its restroom signage has been playfully misleading; for instance, the sign on the women's restroom door states "Men's Room" with the small text "This way to" above, as well as a hand pointing toward the adjacent men's restroom, and vice-versa. Many patrons do not notice the smaller text or hand and hence walk into the incorrect restroom. The signs are widely recognised as a long-running joke and tradition. Similarly misleading signage was installed in the Destin location upon its opening.

The Destin restroom signage, now removed

On April 24, 2007, someone using the name "Chris Hall" filed a complaint with the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation (DBPR), claiming a man walked in on his fifteen-year-old daughter while she was in the women's restroom. Shortly thereafter, the Destin McGuire's was ordered by the DBPR to remove the confusing signage. The News Journal later reported that more than 3,000 patrons of the Destin location signed a petition asking for the return of the old signage within a 10-day period. General Manager Billy Martin defended the signs, saying "“We’re not trying to be malicious. It’s an Irish joke kind of thing.”

The story was picked up by the Associated Press and was published in various newspapers including the San Francisco Chronicle and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, as well as other national news outlets and online blogs and web sites.

The order to remove the confusing signage at the Destin location did not apply to the McGuire's in Pensacola. However, on May 24, 2007, the News Journal reported that the Pensacola location had also been ordered to remove its similar signage after a DBPR inspection cited the restaurant for "lack of signage properly designating bathrooms". Notably, the Destin restaurant was inspected in January 2007 (as well as many times over the past several years) and was not at any time cited for the signage. Attorney Jim Reeves recommended to owner McGuire Martin that he fight the order to remove the signs.

The Department of Business and Professional Regulation and McGuire's eventually came to an agreement that would allow McGuire's to keep their famous signs posted; McGuire's installed a second set of swinging doors after the signs but before the restroom areas.