What a week - St. Patrick's Day festivities last much longer than a day around here, but we welcome the craziness! With two years of experience under our belt, we were a bit more prepared going into the holiday this time around.
Our very own St. Patrick (Craig Smith) watching the parade over the crowd.
The St. Patrick Society's annual Grand Parade falls on the Saturday before St. Patrick's Day, and the collective Quad Cities really turns out for the celebrations! We're very fortunate to be located along the routes for both the parade and the 5k race preceding it in Davenport. We opened for our #ClassicDayOFun at 8AM for an Irish breakfast, followed by a special menu of Irish-inspired items throughout the day. There was a full crew here working their tails off until the wee hours of the morning to keep the crowd happy!
The Me & Billy parade day crew!
Our family sneaks in a little celebration of our own on the Sunday after the parade. Of course we have fun on Saturday, but this is our chance to visit the other Irish bars in town. After a few hours of clean-up at the bar, we headed out on our family bar crawl to have some drinks and relax. We got a little too rowdy last year, so we tamed it down this year. It's a fun tradition!
Collins Family Sunday Funday! From left: Fran, Billy, Sarah, Tricia, Jose, Mary, Jordan, Travis
While parade day is one of the biggest parties of the year, we try not to let the revelry stop there. We continued some of the items from our special weekend menu throughout the week: Irish Nachos, our Fat Frog cocktail, selection of Irish beers - Guinness, Smithwick's and Green Beer of course - and Irish Mules. Our weekly Live Trivia (every Wednesday) host even joined in the fun and worked in some questions regarding our favorite holiday!
Fat Frog cocktail | Irish Nachos | Guinness, Smithwick's and Green Beer | Irish Mules
St. Patrick's Day itself fell on a Thursday this year. In addition to the Irish-inspired items mentioned above, we featured traditional fare of Corned Beef & Cabbage and Irish Stew. We did giveaways all day, including a surprise basket filled with Irish goodies, and even had a bagpiper stop by. It was a grand week indeed!
Surprise St. Patrick's Day basket giveaway at the Irish Memorial - this guy found us in mere minutes!