Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Legendary New York bar run by Belfast pals gutted in blaze
Dead Rabbit destroyed after fire in kitchen
A BLAZE has destroyed the iconic Dead Rabbit bar in New York which is run by two pals from Northern Ireland.
Voted the World’s Best Pub in 2015, it was a charred shell yesterday after a blaze ripped through the four-storey building in the Big Apple’s financial district.
Now the Dead Rabbit Grocery and Grog will be closed “until further notice”.
Firefighters were called to the bar at 30 Water Street after receiving a report of a fire in the bar’s kitchen ventilation system.
The department said no one was injured in the blaze, but in a Facebook post, a spokesman for the bar said it “received considerable fire and water damage and as a result will be closed until further notice.”
The cocktail bar, which opened in 2013, topped the list of The World’s 50 Best Bars back in 2015. Sean Muldoon and Jack Mcgarry, from Ardoyne in North Belfast, set up the multi-award winning establishment after working together in the plush Merchant Hotel in the city centre.
Jack posted a picture of the fire scene on Instagram yesterday and said: “Closed until further notice.
“We’d a fire but don’t have much details apart from that. No one was hurt and we will bounce back but don’t know when.”
Sean and Jack got their starts in bartending in Belfast before starting to work together at The Merchant.
A bar manager, Sean mentored
Jack and put him in charge of the cocktail menu.
After The Merchant won World’s
Best Cocktail Bar in 2010, a customer approached Sean and Jack about using their talents to open a pub in New York.
The Dead Rabbit was born and has since earned one of the highest accolades in the bar industry, including Best Bar in North America.
The pair also recently launched the Dead Rabbit Irish Whiskey, to mark the bar’s fifth anniversary, donating their brand rights to benefit Aware NI.
The Dead Rabbit is a fusion of Lower Manhattan and Irish heritage, serving up everything from luxury cocktails to Irish breakfasts. It is named after the
NEW YORK YESTERDAY
infamous Irish-american street gang that controlled much of Lower Manhattan during the 1850s.
A special portrait of its infamous bunny by Northern Ireland artist Terry Bradley was also commissioned to mark its fifth anniversary.
Terry’s creation portrays the fearsome rabbit in front of an American flag.