Danny Barry’s coffee must be cold by now.
I’ve asked him one question since we sat down in this cafe. A simple yes-or-no: Is he by any chance a descendant of Rochester’s original Barrys, an illustrious Irish lineage beginning with Ellwanger and Barry founder Patrick Barry and continuing through former Mayor Peter Barry in the mid-20th century?
The short answer is no. But Danny Barry – once proprietor of a popular Irish pub, and now a fast-growing brand of Irish cream liqueur and a thronging Irish festival – isn’t known for short answers.
Instead, as the steam wafts off his paper coffee cup like fog off the Kerry coast, he starts the story with his grandfather sitting at a bar in 1965.
That bar is at the Crescent Beach Hotel in Greece, where Joe Barry has worked since coming home from World War II. It’s for sale, and his dream is to buy it and make it his own. The only problem is that he can’t quite put the money together.
Another man sidles up to him at the bar and asks: Are you Joe Barry, and are you trying to buy Crescent Beach?
Yes to both.
You might not remember me, the man says, but you saved me from drowning when we were children. The money will be in your account in the morning.
“It gives me chills just thinking about it,” Danny said.
So began a 40-year run at Crescent Beach, interrupted but not defeated by a catastrophic fire in 1973. Joe Barry also ran Barry’s Party House in Greece as well as Atlantic Recreation Bowling Hall on Atlantic Avenue.
The spirit of friendliness and generosity that imbued those establishments entranced his grandson.
“I’d just be set up at the bar with a plate of cheese and crackers and a Shirley Temple, feeling like I was a king,” he said.
In fifth grade, he told his class that his life’s dream was to open his own Irish pub. Not what his teacher was hoping to hear, perhaps, but he meant it.
That segues smoothly – everything seems to be segueing smoothly, though the coffee’s still undrunk – to the opening of Barry’s Old School Irish in Webster in 2011.
That same year Danny and his wife, Jessica, have just gotten married and are on the plane to their honeymoon in (where else?) Ireland. Mid-air, they sign legal documents making them the owners of a small brick building in downtown Webster, where Danny’s fifth-grade promise will come to life.
They spend the honeymoon touring pubs throughout the country, taking note of what the traditional pubs have in common — the layout, the brand of vinegar, the way customers are greeted — to bring back to their own place, putting those special touches together with Joe Barry’s conviviality.
Just like the old man, they launch the business with plenty of green in the Irish sense and precious little in the financial sense. On opening day, the bank account shows a negative balance.
“Our kitchen was basically a George Foreman grill and an Easy-Bake Oven, and I’m really not exaggerating by much,” Danny said. “If no one had come the first few days, we’d have been done.”
But people did come.
“Day one, we knew it was beyond just us,” he said. “We’re lucky to have our name over the door, but it’s really the community that built it.”
Over 12 years, the corner pub grew into more than they’d ever hoped. It became a favorite hangout for locals and an attraction for travelers from the region and even Ireland, all while maintaining Joe Barry’s quintessential camaraderie.
“People would come into the pub, like, 80 years old, and say, ‘I used to set pins for your grandpa [at his bowling alley],’ Jessica said.
We’ve arrived at a major turning point in the story. At this point in the interview, it’s safe to say that Danny Barry won’t be having so much as a sip of his coffee, but you can’t blame him because he’s about to say something very interesting.
In January 2020, he receives a call out of the blue from the manager of Conor McGregor, the famous Irish mixed martial artist. McGregor has heard about the Barrys, their pub and their general love for all things Irish, and would like to invite them to Las Vegas that weekend to see him fight.
They arrange babysitters and make the trip, sitting ringside with his entourage and joining them for the afterparty. Jessica takes the opportunity to bring up their new line of Irish cream and gets connected to a manufacturer in Ireland.
Then came the pandemic. The barroom was closed, but to-go orders were open, and the whole operation found itself – here’s an image – precariously afloat in a sea of that very same Irish cream, selling a quart at a time out the pub’s front door.
It had always been on the menu, and when an order came in, Jessica would go back and mix it up by hand. Now, she was spending 12 hours a day in the kitchen filling to-go orders; the need to scale up was obvious. They closed a deal McGregor’s team had helped arrange, adding an extra pinch of vanilla to the recipe as a homage to a family chocolate chip cookie recipe.
Barry’s Irish Cream is now available at liquor stores and bars throughout upstate New York, with plans to expand to other states as well. This month, they’re doing a limited run Barry’s Irish Cream Stout collaboration with Genesee Brewing Company Brewmaster Dean Jones, and they’ll turn the Brew House into an unofficial Parade Day headquarters on Saturday, March 15. They’re also thinking of a whiskey to complement the Irish Cream.
With the family’s energy pointed toward manufacturing and retail, the pub closed in 2023. The Barrys are looking now for a larger, permanent location. In the meantime, they’re channeling their people-gathering energy into Barry’s Irish Festival, which drew more than 8,000 people to the Fireman’s Field in Webster last September.
“It’s like taking the walls off the pub for a day,” Danny said.
And the Barry empire stretches even further than that. Danny’s sister owns Barry’s Yoga Studio in Fairport, while his father, David Barry, was a longtime judge in Greece. Several other family members are educators in the Greece Central School District.
I’d hoped to get into all that. The interview has already run over, though, and the coffee needs freshening. thebarrybrand.com
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This article appears in Dec 1-31, 2024.
