Pull Up a Stool at Ryan Maguire’s, a True Home Away From Home
March 13, 2026
Ryan Maguire’s Bar & Restaurant at 28 Cliff St. is a longtime neighborhood favorite. It’s a must-visit on St. Patrick’s Day, and not just because it’s an Irish pub. Indeed, Mena Maguire and her husband Tommy opened the bar on March 17, 1995 — a fitting celebration for the Irish-born couple.
“It was hectic, but what a wonderful, vibrant feeling,” Mena, who came to the U.S. from County Leitrim in 1975, said about opening day. “It was a really, really good time.”
The Maguires had previously owned Ryan’s Sports Bar on Gold Street (both bars are named after their son) and moved to the Cliff Street location when they lost their lease. Initially, the bar was only open on weekdays, in keeping with the neighborhood’s erstwhile 9-to-5 schedule, and served a bevy of regulars at lunchtime. But business boomed, hours expanded, and Ryan Maguire’s became one of the most beloved spots in Lower Manhattan. Here, you can grab a pint, a burger or a classic Irish meal (Mena says the shepherd’s pie and salmon are her two favorites), chat with friendly bartenders, befriend locals and generally feel at home.
Not that the bar hasn’t occasionally fallen on hard times. In March 2010, the space was devastated by a fire, and Ryan Maguire’s had to close for a year. It reopened — of course— on St. Patrick’s Day, to much fanfare. “Everybody was really, really excited that we were back in business and we got so many good wishes from everybody,” Mena said.
Business has also changed since Covid, with the core lunch crowd dwindling amid the rise of remote work. Weekends, meanwhile, are much busier thanks in part to the increase in downtown residents. And the bar’s earned a bit of celebrity status over the years. In 2023, for instance, it played host to the monthly “Ryan Meetup,” with a swarm of revelers named Ryan (no Bryans allowed) partying to celebrate their homonymous status. And Mena earned a bit part in the Downtown Alliance’s 2022 “Downtown Stories” series, with a story about her early days waitressing in New York making it into one of the theatrical performances about the neighborhood’s immigrants.
“My first job was working in an Italian restaurant, but Italian food and pasta wasn’t familiar to me at all,” she said. “On my first day at the job, I did everything wrong that could have been done. The chef in the kitchen yelled at me to pick up a dish, and I just said, ‘I’m so sorry, but I don’t know what to pick up because I’m not familiar with this.’ But by the end of the day, I had him eating out of the palm of my hand.”
Speaking of Irish immigrants, Mena says one of the best things about owning a bar downtown is the thriving Irish community, with longstanding bars like Killarney Rose and Carragher’s at the Irish American serving as hubs for Irish natives in the neighborhood. “There’s something about it that is so much of a family,” Mena said. And of course, she says, there’s the ultimate best part of running the bar: the customers.
“The people that we have met over the years have just been amazing,” she said. “The lovely part about it is that even if they move away, they come back to see us and that gives me the most joy.”
