Penny Pints Hit the Spot at Baltimore Bar on St. Patrick's Day

Maryland Newsline/Capital News Service

BALTIMORE -- At 6 a.m., the lights were off and the door was still locked at the coffee shop on West Pratt Street. But two blocks away, Quigley's Half-Irish Pub was already blaring Irish alternative music from its speakers and serving pints of Guinness for a penny to St. Patrick's Day revelers.

"When I heard about penny Guinness, I said it'd be a sin not to come down and have a few," said Josh Lutter, 26.

Lutter, of New Freedom, Pa., was visiting a friend who lives a few blocks away from Quigley's, a bar in the Ridgely's Delight neighborhood of downtown. He claimed his barstool at 6:15 a.m., and said he'd stay much of the morning before going home to take a nap.

Quigley's served the penny pints and shots of Jameson Irish Whiskey for $1 from 6 a.m. to 8 a.m. on St. Patrick's Day. Just after 7 a.m. portable toilets were being set up on the street outside, and tents sat on the street ready to be pitched by bar staff in anticipation of a growing crowd of wannabe-Irishmen and women, which staff said would spill onto the street.

Jim Quigley, the bar's half-Irish owner, said he's done the 6 a.m. to 8 a.m. promotion and block party for the last four years. He takes a loss every St. Patrick's Day morning, but uses the promotion to draw people in later in the day.

By 7 a.m., more than 30 people crowded the cozy corner bar on Portland Street, just two blocks from Oriole Park at Camden Yards. Many early customers were from the neighborhood and came out to support Quigley.

Harry J. Allen, 69, said he lives just down the street. He enjoys the day's festive atmosphere, and said it wasn't too bad drinking a pint so early, though it had replaced his normal morning drink.

"I haven't had the coffee yet," he said. "I'm waiting now for the Irish breakfast."

Thomas Patrick Light, 49, and his wife, Debbie Brain, 51, were among the first in the bar Thursday morning. Brain, a lawyer in Washington, D.C., stopped in for a pint before catching the train from Camden Station to work.

"I wouldn't do this every day," she said. "I'll tell you that."

After Brain hustled off to catch her train, Light sat at the bar chatting with bartenders and other customers. He bought the bar a round of Guinness, but barely touched his own before leaving to take his 16-year-old son, Miles, to school.

"It's a little early," he said with a laugh.

For Light, the day is more about celebrating his heritage.

"My parents were both Irish. The only thing you would eat (for dinner) is corned beef and cabbage. I have one waiting at home for my family tonight," Light said. "It's not the drinking, it's the celebration (that) we overcame the way others were treated in the past.

"We are a tough, tough people, and we believe in America."

People hustled in and out of the bar throughout the morning, some just stopping in for a quick drink and others setting up camp at one of Quigley's tables, preparing for a long day.

Samuel Berman-Freedman, 28, a law student on spring break at the University of Maryland, Baltimore, said he had slept all day Wednesday and had been up all night getting ready for Thursday morning. Wearing a bright green blazer, Berman-Freedman said he wasn't heading back to his Upper Fell's Point home anytime soon.

"I'll be here all day," he said.

The only people in the bar who didn't seem ecstatic about the pub's early opening were the bartenders.

Laura Ford, 27, normally works as a bartender Wednesday nights, but was working St. Patrick's Day because she said it's one of the bar's biggest days of the year.

Just before 7 a.m., Ford took a sheet of paper and started writing in block letters and then coloring a sign that read, "Tip us, we're Irish." After nearly an hour of receiving pocket change gratuities Ford, though smiling and laughing, seemed ready to end the cheap ride.

"That's why I'm making this sign," she said. "We're having a bit of an issue."