There’s some shuffling going on at St. Petersburg’s Fusion 1560 building.
“When your last name’s McAuley and you buy a bar, you’re gonna make it an Irish pub,” says Gavin McAuley, who purchased the Flying Pig Taphouse at 1584 Central Ave. with his father Michael just before Christmas. The dad-and-son duo and Gavin’s wife Claire have been transitioning the EDGE District craft beer bar, opened in 2013, into its new identity, McAuley’s Pub, since Jan. 1.
“Every change that we’ve made, everybody has just been excited about,” Gavin tells CL. “So many people have said that they’re excited because they almost like always wanted to make this their place, but they knew it needed a change.”
Those changes include a steel-tip dart room with five tournament-quality boards, a fresh coat of green paint on some of the interior, and printed drink menus that allow patrons to sit down and order with a server, rather than belly up to the bar. Plus, the pub’s 50 taps, previously dedicated to craft beer, now offer brands like Guinness and Harp alongside other “recognizables,” as Gavin calls them: Bud, Miller Lite, Stella, Corona and so on.
“I don’t have anything against craft beers at all; we have 40 craft beer taps right now. But what I don’t want to have happen is have people who, let’s say they’re going to the game. There’s a group of six of them — four of them want craft beer, but two of them want just Coors Light. So they end up at Ferg’s because Ferg’s has both, and I don’t want to lose that party of six,” he says.
The co-owner is also looking to showcase St. Pete breweries on draft, which he says the Flying Pig wasn’t doing. He’s talked with folks at Cage Brewing (which doesn’t distribute at the moment, but is working toward it) and Green Bench Brewing Co., whose cider — pear cider, in particular — he’s especially interested in.
During the transition, McAuley’s has even tapped into a niche they didn’t know was there: wine drinkers. They’ve brought on a bunch of wines, including Argentinian malbec and sauvignon blanc, that patrons have responded greatly to. The plan is to keep growing the list and get the staff as well-versed in wine as they are in craft beer.
And there’s more to come. According to Gavin, who says they’re hoping to get customers used to the idea that McAuley’s is also a restaurant (as well as another bar option near Tropicana Field), the kitchen will double in size, making way for necessary equipment like a grill and fryer to implement a full pub menu and expand the limited one it’s serving now.
While McAuley’s doesn’t carry the same lineup as the Flying Pig, some items were carried over — tweaked panini sandwiches among them. A not-so-traditional BLT, which Claire (who’s designing the menus and will eventually manage the rollout of Sunday brunch) imagined with thinly sliced pears and blue cheese mayo, was added to the evolving selection, with Denver green chili nachos on their way. The pub first debuted Claire’s recipe for its raved-about nachos, featuring the spicy green chili Gavin enjoyed on eggs while living in the Colorado capital, as a complimentary Super Bowl snack.
“She’s such a good cook that she tried it one time, got back from [a trip to Denver] and decided to make it herself, and nailed it. Spot on,” Gavin says.
The owners are set to receive plans for the kitchen buildout this week, then it’s off to submit them to the city and landlord for approval to break ground. They’ll paint the remainder of the 3,700-square-foot building green after the buildout, a project they’re “gonna roll with,” as Gavin puts it. The new menu can’t fully launch until the kitchen, which will close temporarily at some point throughout the process, is completed anyway.
“I would love to think it would be done by April 1. I’m assuming it’s not gonna be done by June 1,” he says. “It’s just like, you gotta roll with it and have fun with it. I mean, we didn’t buy this to get stressed out.”
Another addition will be a dividing wall that separates the cozy restaurant aspects of McAuley’s from the free gaming — a 21-foot shuffleboard table, vintage pinball machine and one pool table (the Flying Pig’s pay-to-play tables are being phased out) in addition to darts.
“We want to change it from this big open-air thing to more of an Irish pub feel, where if you’ve ever been into an authentic Irish pub, they have lots of small, nooky conversational places, comfortable places to sit. So that’s kind of the idea, to take this gigantic space and just make it more cozy and individually conversational,” Gavin says.
To become a part of the EDGE District and local community, McAuley’s has three tap takeover-style gatherings planned for Tampa Bay Beer Week. They’ll showcase five or so beers from Pair O’ Dice Brewing Company, Big Storm Brewing Co. and Weyerbacher Brewing Company, out of Pennsylvania, at each event.
A fourth tap takeover with Oregon’s Rogue will come later, around May or June, as will dart leagues on Tuesdays and Wednesdays to take advantage of the pub’s dart room and draw a crowd during otherwise slow services. And don’t forget about the Grand Prix, St. Paddy’s or opening day.
“Come baseball season — opening day, anyway — it’s madness,” Gavin says. “We’re looking forward to that.”
This article appears in Feb 16-23, 2017.