GULF SHORES — There's no need to book a flight to Ireland to get a traditional pub experience. A team of three industry professionals have pooled their skills to open The Galway Irish Public …
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GULF SHORES — There's no need to book a flight to Ireland to get a traditional pub experience. A team of three industry professionals have pooled their skills to open The Galway Irish Public House in Gulf Shores.
It's taken nearly a year and a half to open the doors to this cozy neighborhood pub, but it's been a labor of love for Susan Ellis, Scott Keel and Jonathan Langston. If you've hear their names before, it might be because Ellis and Keel opened Blues Burger Food Truck in 2015 and brought in Langston shortly after to help them expand to a brick-and-mortar in Gulf Shores.
What the three have created in this new venture is a cozy pub nestled in an area of Gulf Shores that is poised to grow exponentially in the near future with construction of a pedestrian bridge across the Intracoastal Waterway from around Tacky Jacks to LuLu's and continued expansions to Waterway Village.
The menu features hearty gastro pub fare like Shepard's pie and fish and chips. Ellis found a fireplace mantle that features prominently in the cozy corner seating area, a phone booth that welcomes guests as they walk in and personalized mugs hanging over the bar.
On Friday, April 26, a select group of family and close friends were welcomed in with open arms for a soft opening. In its brief time open, it has been bustling ever since.
After Langston spoke and a blessing of the pub was given, servers started to take orders. To our pleasant surprise, the full menu was on offer as the team wanted to push everything to the limits.
My table included Orange Beach City Council members Annette Mitchell, Jerry Johnson and Johnson's wife, Yolanda. The Johnsons ordered the Guinness mac and cheese and Irish brown bread to share with the table, and I ordered the pub pretzel, which was served with Guinness beer cheese and Jameson mustard for dipping. Johnson also ordered the pub pretzel. I also ordered the Irish '75 off the specialty cocktails menu.
Everyone at our table could not get over how delicious the Guinness mac and cheese tasted. The pasta was cooked perfectly, and the savory cheese sauce had a tiny hit of heat. The pretzel and accompanying sauces were a hit as well. The brown bread was also good.
The Irish '75 cocktail was concocted of Drumshanbo Irish Gin, lemon, sparkling wine and lemon peel. It was light and refreshing. I could have enjoyed more than one.
After sharing our appetizers and catching up, the Johnsons left and Mitchell and I ordered our main courses. We both ordered from the Pub Classics section of the menu. Mitchell ordered the Reuben, which was piled with house-made corned beef brisket, Swiss cheese, sauerkraut and Jameson-Russian dressing on marbled rye. She gave the sandwich, which was served with chips, her seal of approval.
For my main entrée, I ordered the Galway burger, a 7-ounce patty of chuck, brisket and short rib topped with smoked cheddar, Guinness beer cheese, charred onions and smoked bacon on a toasted potato roll. It was dressed with lettuce, tomato, onion and pickle. The burger was flavorful, juicy and messy. Anytime there is beer cheese on a burger, I am in, despite the need for copious napkins. My sandwich also arrived with what are referred to as chips, but they are not a potato chip or a French fry, rather a tasty hybrid of the two. They are tender in spots and crispy in others and shaped like petals.
The recommendation would be to come hungry because the portions on every plate of food were hearty. While walking around, I spoke with one female diner at the bar who ordered the 14-ounce cast iron seared certified Prime USDA ribeye. The steak was served with Galway colcannon, which is an Irish dish of mashed potatoes, cabbage and onions. She gave it rave reviews. It also includes a side Publican's Caesar and Irish brown bread. It's a lot of tasty food for $54.
Later in the evening, another diner I spoke with ordered the cast iron seared 8-ounce certified Angus beef tenderloin. She opted to order the mac and cheese as a side after my suggestion along with the Caesar salad and Irish brown bread. She said the steak was cooked to perfection and agreed about the mac and cheese and enjoyed the salad.
After my five-hour stint of hanging out at a table, the bar and the cozy fireplace corner, I took my leave. When I left after 7 p.m., every bar stool was filled, people were sitting outside, and the tables were occupied.
The team is still trying to staff up and has continued to operate under limited hours as they work through their processes and so the employees aren't overworked.
"We still need people, so we're definitely not fully staffed at this point," Keel said. "We have enough to get by, but we definitely need some additional employees. We have picked up some great staff and some star players. We're fortunate and blessed in that respect, but we still need a few more."
Families are welcome, but there is not a children's menu or highchairs. There are plenty of items on the menu the whole family will enjoy, but you won't find a coloring sheet or a $10 children's meal.
This is a pub, and that means it is small and intimate.
There are no reservations. This is a come and find a seat or hang out until one opens kind of place, but it's worth the wait.
Try the lamb shank. It's Ellis' and Keel's favorite dish. For Langston, it's the Shepard's pie. He said it's the best he has ever tasted.
Come hungry because the food is delicious and the portions are generous.
Don't come in a rush because this is the kind of place you mean to spend an hour at, and five pints and a chicken potpie later and you are having too much fun to leave.
Susan Ellis moved to Gulf Shores to attend culinary school at what was then Faulkner State Community College after finishing up a business degree at the University of Alabama. After finishing culinary school, she worked in the industry until starting a family in 2004. She met Keel while working outside the culinary industry, and the duo took a leap and opened a hamburger food truck in 2015 called Bleus Burgers.
Keel, who moved to the area in 2008 from Auburn, has a long history as a minister. When he moved to the Gulf Coast, he followed a longtime interest and got into the IT world, where he and Ellis met in the IT department at Columbia Southern University. They gave up cubicles and server rooms for a food truck dream.
Bleus Burger Food Truck filled a void in the culinary scene and became so popular they got a call in 2016 from Pelican Point Shopping Center about a vacancy. Keel and Ellis jumped on the opportunity to open a brick-and-mortar Bleus Burger.
“It was good to get off the hot food truck,” Ellis said.
Opening a restaurant is different from starting a food truck, and there are many variables, jobs to work and processes to create. Ellis had the culinary side taken care of and Keel handled the technology and business aspects, but they needed additional help. Enter Jonathan Langston.
Keel and Langston knew each other through the Methodist Church where they served as worship leaders. Langston was brought on to the team to help with Bleus Burgers before leaving to work full time for the City of Orange Beach.
Langston, like Ellis, has worked on and off in the culinary world for many years and has dreamed of opening a pub like the many he has enjoyed on his overseas travels. The trio teamed up to open the The Galway. Ellis took dish concepts and ideas from Langston and created the recipes for the menu. They worked with the building developers to build out a pub that was originally intended to be a wine bar.
