O’Dwyers Public House is a hotel-turned-pub and co-owned by Deirdre O’Dwyer and James Grimes. O’Dwyers opened back in 1994, and ever since, they have been serving up American classics with an Irish flare.
One of the things that O’Dwyers does best is engage the public. Families, college students, and elderly folks all can feel right at home underneath the dome ceiling of the main dining room. There is even a tiny play area for toddlers to enjoy while the parents eat their meals in peace.
Almost every day of the week, there is something special happening, like live Irish music on the stage in the main dining room, Bingo for charity on Tuesday nights and trivia on Wednesday nights.
Even the University of Wyoming Geology department is getting in on the fun, so it is sponsoring a special Darwin Trivia night on Feb. 15 in honor of the scientist’s birthday, which was on Sunday, Feb. 12.
“Putting in the face time is important, and making sure that everyone that comes in feels welcome, especially in such a small community,” Grimes said.
Speaking of drinks, college students and alcohol-enjoyers will absolutely love the variety of drinks this place offers. Aside from their liquor store right next door, O’Dwyers also offers over 20 beers on tap, three of them from a local brewery, Sheep Mountain Brewery, run by Todd Adams.
Other beers are brought in from places like Oskar Blue in Lyons, Colorado and one of Wyoming’s oldest breweries, Snake River Brewery in Jackson. Chances are, a customer may never have to have the same beer twice.
“We have a couple of beers we always have on tap, a couple of domestics like Bud Light, Coors Light and Guinness, but everything else we try to rotate through so we always have a new beer coming in,” Grimes said.
The drinks in this pub are important, but what use is a drink without food? After all, there are many options for the menu as there are types of beer. One of their most popular items is their Irish Nachos. Instead of tortilla chips, they fry their own potatoes to make fresh-cut potato chips and top it off with cheese sauce, bacon, tomato, green onions and corned beef. It is hard to hate a dish that has O’Dwyers’ corned beef in it, like their Reuben, which is Grimes’ personal favorite.
“We actually smoke our meat in house, for about 14 hours, so the corned beef is pretty good here,” Grimes said.
Their bread for their sandwiches in their next-door deli Black Kilt and the bread for their French toast during breakfast hours are also homemade.
The care and love they put into their food translates to the Irish ways of life, which they are more than happy to share. Adding on to the Irish live music on Mondays, the circular ceiling boasts banners of Irish counties, like Wexford. Part of the Irish tradition is how pubs were and what they were supposed to be.
“We’re trying to carry on the old pub tradition in Ireland. The pub was a community gathering place, so it was about welcoming families, it was about celebrating the culture, the culture being music and poetry, and the Irish are very into that,” O’Dwyer said.
The tradition is going to keep living on, especially with the new menu that’s going to be coming out in a couple of weeks.
“We’re going to try to incorporate more Irish things in our menu, like a rarebit, which is like a cheesy bread made with beer cheese,” Grimes said.
O’Dwyers is about community more than anything else as a restaurant. This pub fits in perfectly with Ireland and even more perfectly with the community of Laramie.
