The final days in business for O’Gara’s Bar and Grill have been filled with the banter and camaraderie that made the beloved St. Paul watering hole a landmark for 77 years.

Longtime customers and members of the O’Gara family poured into the sprawling Irish pub on the corner of Selby and Snelling avenues throughout the week to say their goodbyes and share their fondest memories — many involving beer and St. Patrick’s Day celebrations.

The third-generation, family-run bar is closing Saturday to make way for a multi-story apartment building that will feature a downsized version of O’Gara’s on its ground level. Martin Zellar will close the neighborhood bar out on Saturday night with a performance in its “shanty” music club.

“(The emotions are) kind of all over the board really. We’re excited for the new restaurant, but at the same time it’s going to be tough to see … things change,” said Dan O’Gara, the third-generation owner of the bar. “In the long run, I think it’s going to be a great thing for us.”

O’Gara, 50, and his wife Kris took over the business in 2003 after his father Tim O’Gara retired. Tim O’Gara inherited the tavern in 1972 from his father James Freeman O’Gara, who opened the spot in 1941.

“Being in a … multigenerational business, I really don’t know anything else. I grew up going there with my dad when I was a little kid and … our lives kind of revolve around it,” O’Gara said.

SAYING GOODBYE

The reality of the tavern’s closure didn’t set in for bartender Pat Matykiewicz until later in the week.

Matykiewicz, a 52-year-old from St. Paul who’s worked at O’Gara’s for nearly 22 years, darted between the restaurant’s front and back bars shortly after noon on Friday to serve drinks and lunch to a crowd of customers.

“I’ve sold more Reubens in this last week than I probably did in a year,” said Matykiewicz, who staff and regulars call “Pat Daddy” because of his hard-to-pronounce last name. “I’m going to miss my co-workers and our regulars who are just like family.”

Maureen Watson of Minneapolis and Leslie Rosedahl of St. Paul shared one of those Reubens over lunch Friday as they caught up at their “go-to place.”

Watson, who staff and regulars know as “Mo,” started coming to O’Gara’s in the 1980s when the bar was known as a gathering spot for politicians. She said she’s attended almost every St. Patrick’s Day celebration since, and joked that she keeps coming for the Miller Lite because “you can’t really get that anywhere else in town.”

Rosedahl, a 38-year-old who’s been an O’Gara’s regular since her early 20s, said she can hardly wait for the new location to open.

“I’m a little nervous about it. We’re going to have to find a new spot,” she quipped to Watson.

Eddie Walsh, a 70-year-old regular from St. Paul, enjoyed one of his final beers at O’Gara’s on Thursday night. Walsh started coming to the Irish tavern when he was 21 years old and kept returning for “the people, the place (and) the bartenders.”

“The friendships I’ve made here have lasted my whole lifetime. Even when they move away, they’re still friends,” Walsh said.

A FAMILY AFFAIR

Nearly three dozen members of the extended O’Gara family packed into the restaurant’s dimly lit back bar on Thursday night for a final get-together in the space.

Throughout the evening, relatives reminisced about their experiences working at the family-owned bar.

Seventy-six-year-old Pat Igo, O’Gara’s uncle, first started working at the bar in 1962.

In 1968, Igo said, he was working as a cook at the restaurant when a pressure cooker full of corned beef exploded on him. Jim O’Gara took him to a nearby hospital to treat his wounds, and Igo was back at work the next day.

“I’m going to miss the memories, the clientele. It’s a St. Paul … institution,” said Igo, a St. Paul native who now lives in Woodbury. “I think I’m the only guy in St. Paul, Minnesota, that’s worked for three generations of O’Gara’s,”

Paul Hermann, O’Gara’s cousin, bartended at the pub for two decades. He recalled his first St. Patrick’s Day shift at O’Gara’s, which he said was so crowded that he had to crawl into the dumbwaiter in the basement to be lifted up behind the bar.

“There was no way that you could get through the crowd to get behind the bar,” said Hermann, a 59-year-old St. Paul resident.

Working at the longtime bar has been a rite of passage for members of the O’Gara family, he said. Teenagers have used their paychecks for spending money and to buy their first cars.

“I worked here. All my brothers have worked here. All of my five kids have worked here,” Hermann said.

NOT OVER YET

Starting Sunday, the family will have just over two weeks to remove artifacts from the bar that they plan to use in the new restaurant, Dan O’Gara said.

The family will be salvaging the green tin ceilings in the main bar, he said, along with belt-driven fans, cherry woodwork, a mural of leprechaun cobblers created by the founder, and more. Any remaining items will be auctioned online.

“We’ve got a really busy few weeks ahead of us,” O’Gara said.

The design for the building that will replace the sprawling pub includes 163 apartment units, 205 parking stalls, an integrated co-working space and more than 4,100 square feet of space for O’Gara’s. The current bar is more than four times that size.

Also going away with the bar’s demolition: An apartment above the bar that was once home to Charles Schulz, the cartoonist behind the “Peanuts” comic strip. Schulz’s father, Carl, ran a barbershop downstairs in a space that O’Gara’s would later expand into. Related Articles Charges: 17-year-old shot 15-year-old in face during marijuana deal in St. Paul

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Between off-site catering and running their State Fair stand next August, O’Gara said, the family will stay busy until the new restaurant opens. The new O’Gara’s bar is expected to open by January 2020.

“I think it’s going to be fun to … create a really warm, comfortable place for people to hang out,” O’Gara said. “That’s our goal is just to have a cool place to meet friends, have a good meal and a nice beverage.”