O’Gara Bar and Grill

It smells like a porta potty inside. The staff comes off very dull and lifeless. But I got to meet the local drunk! That was definitely the only highlight of this place. Typical bad Irish bar.

I did not notice the smell. The shepherds pie was great. Beer selection phenomenal. This place had a sense of being a neighborhood bar. Service was good.

Filthy and stinky! Could be a great place if they would clean it up and renovate it.

I’d say I’ll agree with some people here. This place is dingy, dirty, and has a smell of old locker room and feet. I’d never go here again even if their food is decent.
Just went here to check one off the Pub Pass. The one plus I’ll give them is that their beer selection is good. However, waitress who corrected me, a cream ale is not a double IPA. If Pub Pass is recommending this place, then they should at least know about the beer they’re serving.

Walking in the back door from the parking lot gave me a clue as to how lazy this place is. The hallway reeked of a combination of old cigarettes and gym locker. The décor is dated (not in a good or charming way) and reminded me of a nursing home. The food was horrible, the chicken wings were way over done and the Rachel tasted like turkey gone bad, soggy bread and was a failure all around. All dressings obviously come in big jugs. The parmesan on the caesar looked and tasted like it was grated six months ago. There is no freshness to the food here, the cook just opens bags and jars and puts it on a plate. Just because you’ve been around forever is no excuse for serving bad food

This is a tough one. Attended the Cadenza Anniversary celebration in the Shanty room.
1. Great room for an event. Large bar area and stage
2. The wait staff-​VERY NICE; accomodating, helpful
3. Food was decent, but I could barely eat because…
The SMELL! UGH
Stale cigarette smoke was nothing compared to the URINE tang. I don’t how this is possible, but whoa man it was gross.
Perhaps get rid of the carpet?! Ack

Don’t you love Bar Review? Yes, but not at this stuffy place. (At least in the area where we were seated) In my opinion it had three things going for it
1. Good customer service: our waitress was a doll and super attentive
2. Good cheesecurds! Nice and hot and cheesy super good. I had not had cheese curds until I got to the midwest and these were definitely on point!
3. It was empty so we basically had the whole place to ourselves.
If I go back it would definitely be for the cheesecurds… lol

Came for happy hour with a group. Good specials, parking, and nice atmosphere.
O’Gara’s NEEDS to put the pretzel curds on their regular menu. Luckily they had some on hand, SO GOOD!

O’Gara’s is not the place you go if you’re looking to impress a lady (or a fella), unless that person is heavily tattooed, in a band and wearing an 90’s Metallica tour shirt that they bought at the show. There are no mixologists here; no fancy house-​made bitters served with artisanal, small batch bourbon. This is a bar for the working-​man that’s fixed in it’s own era. Unlike the pseudo-​Irish pubs that are springing up everywhere, you know O’Gara’s is the real deal because the tables are sticky from years of being wiped with a dirty rag and it smells like old booze and cigarettes, even though the indoor smoking ban has been in place since 2007. It’s real-​ness is baked in. You can see rock shows performed in the back room and enjoy a decent (but unremarkable and slightly overpriced) pub burger or nachos when you need something to soak up all the Irish Car Bombs you ingested with your buddies while waiting for the opening act to take the stage. You don’t go to O’Gara’s for the service, the atmosphere or the food. You go because that’s just what you’ve always done, and will continue to do, because it’s in your blood, and that’s ok.

Worst service my family and I have ever experienced, we sat outside and after the waiter took our drink order two other tables say down and were served drinks before us, 30 minutes later we got our drinks except for my nieces water. We got the idea the kid was new to be a waiter but, the fact he seemed to not care at all was disappointing after telling him 30 min to get drinks is not good service he went on to blame the bar tender and other waitstaff when he should have just apologized, we wanted to order food cause the descriptions of the food sounded amazing but, the waiter took way too long. being raised to tip we’ll rom our father who has a restaurant downtown Minneapolis we couldn’t tip on this service

O’Gs… a St Paul classic.
Been here more times then I can count and it’s usually a 2 – 3 start performance each time. My friends and I or family and I normally stop here and take the shuttle to Twins, Vikings or Gopher games, which is a great convenience to everyone.
They do have some solid happy hour specials and the drinks aren’t bad.
Service — it’s what makes this never a consistent 2 or 4 star place. Some days, the service is fantastic. The waitress is there to fill drinks and bring whatever is needed. Other times, even when we’ve beat the rush in and the place is nearly empty, the service leaves so much to be desired it actually has us getting up to go to the bar to grab things we need or ask for a refill.
Food — never really an issue. It’s your normal bar classics that are done decently and never really wow ya. The black-​n-​blue burger is easily my favorite here though. A solid bleu cheese topped burger that is usually good. The wraps leave a lot to be desired. Breakfast is below average greasy spoon chow for those that stop here on a Sunday morning for some reason (bloody bar isn’t too special, so not overly sure why someone would pick here for a Sunday morning destination aside from a shuttle to a sporting event).
Parking is a nightmare. Get here early and if you get a spot, count your blessings. Most likely you’ll be parking on the residential street that connects the lot and Snelling (name slips my mind). NOTE — CHECK NO PARKING SIGNS. I’ve got a ticket for parking on this street late night thanks to a Twins game and didn’t see hours posted for no parking.

I’ve been here once, it smelled terrible and was immediately turned off. It took us awhile to get a server and when she finally came she was alright. However, after she
gave us out drinks (took 10mins) we were then told to wait, we waited another 10mins. By the time we ordered for HAPPY HOUR it was 15mins past the happy hour time. I was extremely displeased and will never go there again.

Stopped in for lunch and were gracious when we mentioned we were in a hurry. I had the Turkey Burger and it was very good, and kind of thought that it was real.
They kept are glasses full and catered to our needs, which made the lunch very nice with my work associate.

Popular neighborhood bar with working-​class vibes and super-​friendly wait staff. The bar is right in a popular area of St. Paul, and there are quite a few other bars and restaurants in the area. We got there around 5:30 and got a 2-​for-​1 happy hour deal, and the drinks were quite good. The waitress was helpful and cheerful too. Overall a great deal. Our appetizers were kinda greazy, but for the low price I can’t really complain. Will definitely be back!

Went in on Friday night to watch the semi-​finals in the final-​four — this bar is perfect for watching a game. There seemed to be enough seating around TV’s and the atmosphere was perfect. I had the Bleu burger which was great and was overflowing with so much cheese — wow. But the fries were overdone and pretty blah. Sorry — I am a fry snob. Overall, a nice pub to relax in with a beer.

I always think «LET’S GO TO O’GARA’S! IT’S PERFECTLY LOCATED FOR A ST. PAUL HANGOUT!» And I always leave thinking, «ugh. Should’ve gone to Groveland Tap or somewhere else!» Again, for having friends/​events in the St. Paul area, it’s perfectly situated and I wish I were crazy about something there. But I’m not. I’ve ordered the Fish & Chips before, they’re underwhelming, and I’ve ordered the Cheese Fries before, but they’re always over cooked to the point that the cheese is hard and not gooey-​stringy (the way I prefer my cheeses). So, it’s definitely not a bad place and it’s definitely not bad service, it’s just underwhelming.
BONUS: I do prefer summers there, they have a patio out back and they have a parking lot which is hard to hate!

A BLAST FROM THE PAST !!!
Oh my, going to O Gara’s for the first time in 40 years. Yes, I am that old, but definitely still kicking. And kicking it hard! So I was there a few times in my early 20s, but it wasn’t my scene. I had other haunts at that time .
So fast forward to 2013, and I am going there on a Monday night before a Wild game. We walk in and many of the people there seemed to be our age. That makes me comfortable! It appears to look the same, and I think one guy at the end of the bar was sitting there the last time I was here.
Got seated in a pleasant booth, and a very young server attended to our needs. I could tell she wasn’t real confident, and unsure of what she was doing. I played nice. We told her what our plan was, but being practical we were there with plenty of time to eat and make it to the game on time.
LOOK, Battered Chicken Wings on the app menu. Gotta have me some of them!
Waited forever for them, and when they arrived, they were done to a crisp, barely edible. That’s why they took so long, the cook forgot they were in the fryer! Then 1 minute later our undercooked quesadilla arrives. The wild rice soup was good, but average. I will give the mod credit, she did stop by twice to see if all was well. I certainly wasn’t going to comment on the over cooked wings in front of my date who was paying. Sheezh. Apparently she couldn’t see they were dark brown, not golden. We only ate a couple and took the rest to go.
The menu as a whole looked really good. And I am sure it is like many restaurants, the food is good quality, it just depends on which cook is cooking that day. Cooking at a busy place like that is a hard job. Hell, cooking anywhere is a hard job.

I am sure this place is hoppin on weekends and traditionally the whole week of
St Patrick’s Day.
And I am sure you will have a good time.
And I am sure you will spend a lot of money.
And I am sure many won’t remember the good time they had.
And I am sure this will continue on for another 40 yrs.
One great idea: there seemed to be a shuttle bus to take patrons to the Wild game. Nice. Since I wasn’t the road captain this trip, I didn’t ask how to go about utilizing it. However, I did feel a little Irish when I left.
THANK GOODNESS THE WINGS WERE $ 3 OFF /​HAPPY HOUR

Very homophobic establishment, the people you hire represent you as a company.
Stopped in for a drinks and food. Sat at a booth for about 10 min, two servers passed us. Finally stopped one to ask for service. Her response was I can’t help you, and walked away.
Got up walked over to the bar and asked if he could find our server, he sounded very sincere in finding our server.
Maybe 10 more min went by and still no service.
We ended up leaving with still no hello from anyone.
Went to a pub down the road and had a wonderful night out.

I went for a Red Bull event (judge me all you want) this past weekend for a Crashed Ice viewing party/​Kinect game championship. That’s right, I was in a video game tournament. My friend and I thought we had a chance to win to get to Quebec after placing at the pre-​party a few weeks ago… we got too drunk, didn’t win, but that’s a different story. Fun fact: O’Gara’s was the first bar in the Twin Cities to sign a contract with Red Bull, hence the event being here.
The event was in the basement which was a fairly nice spot for a larger, private event. Large bar, lots of tables (no chairs though). Bartenders seemed unhappy to be there. The drinks were super pricey, which is my biggest concern for a place like this. Rail drinks were $ 6 each? This is a bar on Snelling, keep in mind. The drinks were pretty strong, but that’s still super pricey. They also had free food (SCORE!), which was okay. Wings and meatballs were good, especially for being served from a chafing dish, which can make things really dry sometimes, especially meat.
I don’t think they made a good enough impression on me that I’d be back (except maybe on St Patrick’s Day, heard it’s fun there). The upstairs looked pretty nice (like a bougie version of the Local…) and would be a good place to watch a game.

Continuing the quest for amazing beef tips! I’ve been to O’Gara’s on Saint Patrick’s Day (bad idea in the evening, btw) and after getting a rail vodka Sprite, I’ve decided to stay away from mixed drinks at this location.
I wanted to give this place a second try. This time I got a Woodchuck — tis the season! When I saw beef tips on the menu, I was even more excited, until they came out. Granted, I ordered them well, but I would expect a little bit more in portion size for it being an appetizer. I don’t think they would have shrank that much…
Moral of the story, a better place for non-​mixed drinks.