The Harp’s owner Anthony Fleming remains a steward of the establishment he transformed into an Irish bar in Ocean Beach nearly 20 years ago.
“I’ve had it for 19 years,” Fleming said adding, “It will be our 20th anniversary on Feb. 1 next year. So we’ll have a big party. And this is our 20th St. Patrick’s Day as well.”
Fleming and a business partner purchased The Harp on Newport Avenue, which was named Marco’s Bar & Grill back then, and Newport Avenue Bar & Grill before that in the ’80s and ’90s. They bought it from a Greek couple.
“We were looking for a bar that we were going to make Irish,” said Fleming. “There weren’t many Irish bars for sale.”
How do you make a bar Irish?
“It’s more the ethos (spirit of a culture),” answered the pub owner. “It’s a place where you can come and feel comfortable, meet people. You can actually talk.”
Patrons have told Fleming, “You know what it is about this place? You talk to us.” To which Fleming replied, “We’re Irish, we drink and we talk: That’s what we do.”
The Irish conversion didn’t come easily though.
“We had to completely rip out the high booths and Formica tables that were here,” Fleming said. “We put a bit more wood in the place, got some wood on the floor. It was all white ceramic tile before. We just had to make it feel homier, warmer, lots of browns and greens.”
How does The Harp differ from other bars on Newport?
“It’s the feel, the welcome,” Fleming answered, pointing out pubs enjoy a special place in Irish culture. “It normally is the focal point of every community, a meeting hall, a drinking hole,” he said. “It’s a place where you congregate and meet your neighbors.”
Appropriately enough, there’s a Gaelic slogan, Céad Míle Fáilte, near The Harp’s ceiling, which means “one hundred thousand welcomes.”
The Harp for years has featured live music, mostly cover bands, on weekends. That was suspended during COVID. But Fleming’s expecting to bring bands back again, perhaps as soon as April.
One of the unique features of The Harp is nostalgic murals depicting men drinking at the bar on the pub’s rear wall. “We commissioned those from a local artist named Aaron Adams about five years ago, he’s a regular here,” noted Fleming.
Is it fun being the owner of an Irish bar? “If it wasn’t fun I would have stopped doing it a long time ago,” said Fleming who added, “Ocean Beach has changed quite a lot. When we came here there weren’t very many good bars on Newport. There’s a lot more now. And they’re a lot better. A lot of gentrification has happened. It’s not the biker and hippie town it was years ago.”
The Harp has a menu featuring mostly American cuisine like burgers, sliders, sandwiches, and fish and chips. But there are some Irish and British menu items like Irish nachos (deep-fried potatoes), bangers and mash, and shepherd’s pie.
Fleming and The Harp are looking forward to St. Patrick’s Day, which is on a Thursday this year, and to the OB St. Patrick’s day bash being held two days later on Saturday, March 19.
“The significance of St. Patrick’s Day starts with the potato famine in the 1840s and 1850s, that’s what drove a million and a half people from Ireland, and over a million Irish people came to the U.S.,” said Fleming.
Noting Irish immigrants were Catholic and the majority of Americans were Protestant back then, it led to discrimination against the Irish. “So what they did was they banded together and started having St. Patrick’s Day parades in all the big cities to affirm and attest their identity,” noted Fleming.
St. Patrick’s Day is always a big deal for any bar, especially Irish ones like his, pointed out Fleming.
“It will be busy during the day and crazy in the evening,” he said. “We’ll have to limit numbers at the door. As we always say, you make twice as much money – but you do four times as much work. Having said that, it’s always a showcase as well. It’s come and see us. It’s like the St. Patrick’s Day parade. We’re here. This is us.”
THE HARP
Where: 4935 Newport Ave.
Contact: harpob.com.
