Employees from L&E Bottling in Tumwater set up soda fountains Thursday at the bar of O'Blarney's Irish Pub, set to open soon at the former Gibson House Restaurant site on the corner of North Tower Avenue and West Magnolia Street in downtown Centralia.
As Jeff Malloy worked with crews in downtown Centralia Thursday afternoon to continue renovating the old Gibson House Restaurant into O’Blarney’s Irish Pub, a couple tried to open the front doors and step inside to no avail.
“We get that all the time, so that’s why we keep the doors locked,” Malloy, managing partner for Olympia-based O’Blarney’s, said with a laugh. “People are taking notice and seeing that we’re going to open soon, and they’re really excited about it.”
It may not be much longer before the public gets its first chance to eat inside the soon-to-be second O’Blarney’s location.
Malloy and founder John Heelan spent their Thursday afternoon inside the ever-evolving pub and restaurant at the corner of Tower and Magnolia, putting chairs and pool tables together as crews from Olympia Construction continued to work on floors and walls, Digital Music Service of Kent installed a high-tech jukebox and L&E Bottling crews installed soda fountains.
O’Blarney’s ownership negotiated a lease agreement with building owner Lee Ingrim in September, one and a half years after the Gibson House Restaurant closed down for the third time since 2004.
The new bar and restaurant at 221 N. Tower Ave. will sport several improvements that are nearly finished. They will distinguish it from the previous effort at a upscale dining establishment, Malloy said, including a partition with windows that will separate the bar and restaurant portions of O’Blarney’s.
The pub will also contain 13 big-screen TVs that will showcase various programming and sporting events, in addition to pool tables.
“We’re going to try to see about the possibility of showing mixed martial arts on pay-per-view here too,” Malloy said. “We have a positive reaction from that so far.”
Twenty-five employees, from servers to line cooks and bartenders, filled out initial paperwork Wednesday for getting started soon, according to Malloy.
Heelan, who founded the original O’Blarney’s at 4411 Martin Way East in Olympia in 1986, said downtown Centralia was a “natural choice” for his pub’s second location, noting what he called the “coziness” of the downtown core and the potential for high volumes of customer traffic.
“It’s a really beautiful area down here,” Malloy said. “We want to adhere to a philosophy of treating everyone the way you want to be treated, because that determines your clientele.”
O’Blarney’s holds the lease on the first and second floors of the Gibson House building, meaning the second-floor Gibson House Events Center will be able to be utilized and rented by the public. The third floor containing office space will remain as it has in the past, Malloy and Heelan said.
As far as a potential opening date for O’Blarney’s Centralia location, which will officially be known as O’Blarney’s Irish Pub just like it’s Olympia counterpart, Malloy said it will happen “soon.”
“We’re still waiting on a few things, and I’d tell everyone that each day that passes is a day closer to us opening,” Malloy said. “We’re excited and we’re getting the sense the community’s excited, so we can’t wait either.”
•••
Christopher Brewer: (360) 807-8235
