Many years ago, (and by “many” I mean over thirty) I reached out to a publican for advice on my career.
His name was Boz O’Brien and he was the owner of Reilly’s Daughter out on the South Side of Chicago.
Boz, Rose of Tralee Maggie McEldowney, Brendan at airport
I had moved home to Chicago after a dozen years in New York City as an actor/producer/BS Artist. It was fun, but with a wife and twin sons I needed steady work, which I was lucky enough to find in Chicago through the old South Side Irish network.
A steady government paycheck was a glorious thing but I was starting to feel that old “itch” to get back on stage and was contemplating writing a memoir of my wild Southside Irish youth and putting it onstage in the old neighborhood.
Boz w San Diegeo Chicken promoting blood drive
Boz had owned his saloon since the seventies and it was gangbusters every night with music, laughter, Chicago Bears football stars, and tons of Southside Irish reveling in their shared mythological stories. As Boz would say, “It was asses and elbows every night!”
I had spent some time in his joint, Reilly’s Daughter, and it attracted the same crowd of boomers I was looking to draw for my show.
He took me to lunch near his tavern and I told him my idea. Boz immediately encouraged me to write the play, put some dough together, and premiere the show onstage in our old stomping grounds at the Beverly Arts Center. He even kicked in some dough for the production if memory serves.
Ribaldry at Reilly's
The show "GOIN’ EAST ON ASHLAND" was an instant hit with critical raves and sell-out crowds every St. Patrick’s Day and ran for over six years all over Chicagoland. I probably could never have taken that leap of faith if Boz O’Brien hadn’t believed in me.
Boz was 24 when he got his first liquor license and opened the venerable Irish pub in 1976 and instituted a series of hijinks in its heyday that will never be forgotten.
He was the king of crazy stunts like hiring the San Diego chicken to run across the bar, raffling off a live turkey the night before Thanksgiving, bringing Santa Claus in by helicopter for the kids and selling raffle tickets during Monday Night Football to award the winner the honor of throwing a brick through the TV whenever Howard Cosell started his yapping. That kind of news spread across the nation and everybody wanted to hang at Reilly’s Daughter on the South Side of Chicago.
Brendan, Danny & Boz Deja Vu
Boz has sold a lot of beer since then, rivers of it. Reilly’s regularly did 500 cases of Miller Lite a week. Tip O’Neill stopped in on his travels through Chicago and Mayor Rich Daley was practically a regular; and so was almost the entire Chicago Bears 1985 Super Bowl champs.
Notre Dame Coach Lou Holtz did his TV show LIVE from Reilly’s. Many of Chicago’s biggest labor leaders were once bouncers and bartenders at Reilly’s, and a young Hawaiian fella named Barack Obama once took a leak in the Men’s Room!
Brendan and Boz O'Brien with the Heisman trophy
Boz sold the joint in 2003 after opening Reilly’s Daughter in Midway airport. But he returned to reclaim Southside Reilly’s in 2015. Boz then quoted Yogi Berra, who died on the day they signed the lease: “It’s like Déjà vu all over again!”
What started at 1400 square feet is now 5000 and going strong, with two airport locations and the original Southside location at 111th and Pulaski. Boz tells me, “Our next-door neighbor is a cemetery so there’s never a noise complaint!”
The fun continues to this day and there’s a reason for that. It ain’t the gorgeous bartenders, the yummy food, or the Irish ambience. It’s Boz O’Brien himself. He’s the real deal, he and his sons Brendan and Danny.
They believe in their customers. Family, faith, loyalty, Southside Irish to the core. It’s where the song was written.
We’re the Southside Irish, lyrics by Terry McEldowney.
“We're the South Side Irish as our fathers were before
We come from the Windy City and we're Irish to the core
From Bridgeport to Beverly from Midway to South Shore
We're the South Side Irish-Let's sing it out once more!"Our parents came from Mayo, from Cork and Donegal.
We come from Sabina, St. Kilian's and St. Gall
St. Leo, Visitation, Little Flower and the rest.
The South Side parishes are mighty-they're the best!”
