The Man behind the bar

Newcomers would never guess the 75-year-old man sitting quietly at the end of the bar, pencil in hand, hunched over a USA Today crossword puzzle, is the guy whose name is on the sign out front.

But after a few minutes watching regulars greet him warmly—and a quick glance at the array of framed photos from St. Patrick’s Day parades of yore—it is clear this Ireland native is the mascot, the icon, the godfather of Ivar’s, one of Baton Rouge’s longest-running sports bars.

“It helps to have a grand marshal of the parade that’s not from, you know, Brusly or somewhere,” jokes son, Pat, a former petroleum engineer who has owned and operated Ivar’s Sports Bar & Grill since 1990.

His father, Ivar, spends June through August in Ireland, and the rest of the year at his home near Daytona, Fla.

He recently spent a week here to see Pat, Pat’s wife Sonya and his grandchildren. But his attention soon shifts to the March 15 St. Patrick’s Day parade, the day when Ivar’s blossoms in full, raucous glory, when parade-goers and Ivar’s patrons become an indistinguishable mass that ebbs and flows in and out of the bar well into the wee small hours.

Ivar himself never misses it, and it’s the one time he’ll actually drink a Guinness in the States. “It doesn’t travel well and tastes much better in Ireland,” he divulges.

The Perkins Road Overpass neighborhood has made a minor celebrity out of him, and he marks the parade as one of the main reasons he relishes Baton Rouge. Knockout bar manager Trisha Screen slings an arm around his shoulders, and asks slowly, “What about me?” Quigley grins. “Well, I just said it was one of the reasons.”

Ivar hails from the landlocked County Offaly. “The Missouri of Ireland,” he says. This would explain his surprisingly subtle accent.

Quigley the Elder immigrated to New York City at age 22 in 1955, when large areas of The Bronx were like an Irish ghetto. Half the people he knew from back home were already New Yorkers. “That’s where the neighborhood bar became synonymous with the Irish because they did like to imbibe a few, and those taverns were essential to our social fabric,” he says. “There was a bar on each corner and a Catholic church on the next.”

Quigley spent his 20s playing in an Irish football league (the round kind). Then he married, moved to New Jersey and went to work for MetLife in the insurance business.

His relaxed joie de vivre helped him land perhaps the only insurance job befitting an Irishman who’d one day lend his name to a popular bar: arranging appearances of the famous MetLife blimp at sporting events like PGA tournaments and NFL games.

“He had the greatest job in America,” says friend and Ivar’s regular Larry Tucker.

In 1990 Pat phoned his dad from Baton Rouge and asked for his blessing for his new bar’s name. Ivar asked his son if he was crazy. But he agreed, and the name stuck. Ironically, by avoiding a kitschy Irish vibe, the bar is much more like the traditional, tight-knit corner pubs Ivar cherishes from his days in New York.

“Pat comes from good stock,” says Ivar’s regular Crews LeBlanc, a parish prosecutor. “I basically adopted Ivar after my dad passed away because he’s such a great man, and the bar is an incredible place for friends.”

Ivar’s regulars have kept it vital through nearly two decades of competition, including the arrival of deep-pocketed national chains in Baton Rouge. “The sports bar back then was T.J. Ribs, which is a wonderful restaurant, but we wanted to do something more casual, like a traditional sports bar,” Pat explains. “What we soon discovered was that we rounded ourselves into a neighborhood bar, which is why we’re in our 18th year. Sports bars come and go.”

As Ivar Quigley nears the end of his crossword puzzle, he leans back in his corner seat, feeling relaxed and at home in a joint half the world away from where he grew up. Happy-hour patrons are trickling in now, loosening those 9-to-5 ties and saying hello. Quigley shakes a few hands and smiles. It’s almost time for a drink. ivars.com