Every winter, an event takes place that has become as much a part of the fabric of Syracuse’s Irish-American community as the St. Patrick’s Parade and corned beef dinners. A couple of weeks before the calendar announces spring, a tanker truck steams down Tompkins Street, air horn blasting, as the guest of honor at a procession featuring bagpipers, Irish dancers and a local celebrity in the role of grand marshal.
The entourage stops in front of a handsome green building with maroon awnings at Tompkins’ intersection with Lowell Avenue. What follows is a bit of blarney that has become a Syracuse legend. As the genial crowd gathers around, a white-haired tavern keeper fills a mug with a foamy brew that looks like beer except for its color, a shimmering emerald.
Pluck of the Irish: Peter Coleman welcomed Peter Cappuccilli (left) and the annual delivery of green beer on Feb. 24. And whether you drink or dine at Coleman’s, or just pay a visit, you can purchase a souvenir sweat shirt at the gift shop. Jon Dufort photo.
Every Tipperary Hill resident of any seniority knows it’s Green Beer Day at Coleman’s Authentic Irish Pub, the day when affable entrepreneur Peter Coleman officially kicks off the St. Patrick’s season by welcoming the world to his corner—really the cornerstone of the city’s most Irish section, on the rolling streets of the West Side. This year’s event, held on Sunday, Feb. 24, featured a crowd of several hundred, many decked out in green, all basking in bright sunshine and high spirits. Families with children and even dogs, one wearing a green bow tie, cheered the spectacle and waved to this year’s grand marshal, former State Fair director and current candidate for Congress Peter Cappuccilli.
It didn’t take long for the parade to travel the two blocks from the city’s other most famous Irish landmark, the green-on-top traffic light. The end of the march marked the beginning of a party with Coleman in the familiar role of host as patrons swarmed his restaurant and spilled over into the white tents standing in the parking lot in preparation for a hectic St. Patrick’s season.
“We’ve been doing this for almost 40 years,” the 71-year-old barkeep proclaimed. “It’s an amazing tradition and one of our biggest days of the year.”
Calling his establishment a “pub” is atypically modest for the flamboyant Coleman. April 11 marks the 75th anniversary of the venerable saloon that’s also a fine restaurant, a neighborhood gathering place, a destination for visitors from near and far, a banquet and party facility and a live music venue. The tap room’s glossy oak bar has long been a community staple, for both its far-reaching fame and its iconic status as centerpiece of the finely appointed tavern that has become synonymous with Tipp Hill.
Irish eyes are smiling: Coleman’s welcoming entryway at the end of Lowell Avenue leads to such embellishments inside as well-crafted stained glass celebrating the pub’s 1933 founding and the green-on-top traffic light down the street. Michael Davis Photo.
“This is a perfect day to visit Tipp Hill,” said neighborhood native Don O’Leary. “I came to Green Beer Day for some of the early years and my daughter, Tess, has danced in the parade. I grew up near here, so I remember when Coleman’s was just a little building next to Tompkins School, where the parking lot is now. It’s all beautiful, everything Peter’s invested in. He’s improved Tipp Hill along the way. He’s quite the ambassador.”
The Peter Principle
Although it all started with Coleman’s father, Peter A. Coleman, who graduated from speakeasy proprietor to tavern owner in 1933, the vision and hard work of the younger Coleman, Peter J., have made his labor of love into a highly profitable business, one with a payroll of 42 full- and part-time employees. Family satellite businesses include numerous rental properties, the Cashel House Irish gift shop, owned by Peter’s sister across the street, and sports bar Rosie's Sports Pub and Grille, a few blocks away. And even though they made a valiant effort, the family recently shuttered Coleman’s Pub in Oswego, in part because it couldn’t sustain a clientele during the brutal winter months.
“I never worked for anybody else, except for four months after high school,” Coleman recalls. “I worked at Niagara Mohawk. I wanted to be a lineman. Then I came here to work for my father when I was 18. He’d managed it for a long time and it was a very successful business. At the time, the drinking age was 18, but the average age of our customer looked to be about 85. They were all the guys who worked at Carrier and the steel mills. It was a working man’s pub, it really was. When I came in, it took about a year or year-and-a-half, then my peers started coming in and it started to become a young joint.”
Coleman had to grow up fast as the manager when his father’s health failed. “My dad got sick in ‘55, right when I was getting out of St. Patrick’s School.” he relates, “and we almost lost the place. He died in ‘61.” A framed portrait painting of the elder Coleman hangs above the mantel in a dining area.
As he grew into his role as the pub’s owner, Coleman also became a promoter and advocate for Tipp Hill, instrumental in neighborhood improvement projects and tourism promotions. He was the driving force behind such landmarks as the Stone Throwers Statue, a tribute to the mischievous lads who refused to allow the city to hang a light with their beloved green relegated to the bottom bulb. “My uncle ‘Rubber’ Coleman—his name was Lawrence—ran a speakeasy on the very spot where the Stone Throwers Park now sits,” Coleman says about the spot adjacent to the famous traffic signal.
Today, Coleman has established seniority among Tipp Hill tavern owners and popularity among patrons. It’s very rare for any neighbor to make a negative comment about him as he’s seen by many as Tipp Hill’s George Bailey.
“Peter Coleman is the heart and soul of Tipperary Hill,” says Janice McKenna, president of the neighborhood association. “Everything good that has happened here has been started by him, in my estimation. Look at his care for the neighborhood and his care for the people here and the way he keeps up his own property. He’s always willing to lend a helping hand.”
Throughout his 50-plus years in the hospitality business Coleman has also served as mentor to many of the community’s leading citizens. “It’s been wonderful, it really has,” he notes. “When you think of all the kids who have worked here, worked their way through college making good money tending bar. When I think of all the bartenders I’ve had here that are lawyers now or doctors, it’s really amazing.”
Coleman’s has been an especially popular employer for those destined for the traditionally Irish-American profession of police officer. “Look at Richie Walsh,” Coleman marvels. “We taught him all about how to control the world, starting at Coleman’s Saloon. Richie got a big job as the head of the Criminal Investigations Division for the Syracuse Police Department. Any good cop got their training at Coleman’s.”
Walsh, last year’s Green Beer Day grand marshal, worked at Coleman’s from 1966 to 1970. “I worked there for four years as a bartender,” says Walsh, a Syracuse Police Department captain, “while I was a student at Syracuse University. I was working there when I met my wife. She was a customer. She went to college at Maria Regina and she used to come down with a bunch of girls from her class. That was in 1966. I know of a number of friends of mine who met their wives there and had many dates there.”
Indeed Coleman himself met his wife of 41 years, Mary Pat, in his pub in the 1960s. “She was a nurse at {St. Joseph’s Hospital},” he says. “We had all the St. Joe’s nurses here.” The couple has since produced six children and four grandchildren. Along the way, the boss reinvented himself as he rejuvenated his business. “I’ve been on the wagon for 29 years,” he acknowledges. “But I was drunk for 24 years before that, so no congratulations for that.”
By all accounts, many a romance has blossomed in the pub while others have culminated with wedding receptions and even a few wedding ceremonies performed in the upstairs banquet room. “Bob Powers, who was a State Trooper for years, now he’s a judge out in Camillus,” Coleman explains. “His family lived upstairs when Coleman’s was just a little saloon. They lived in that apartment for 25 years, the Powers family. Now, he’s performed two weddings in what was once his own living room. And he still comes here. He and his wife never miss Green Beer Day. I was just talking to City Court Judge Jeffrey Merrill. He’s done three weddings here.”
Irish Ayes
But the celebration for which Coleman’s is most famous has always been the hooley savored by Irish-Americans and those who cherish them, St. Patrick’s Day. The crowds that swarm the tap room in observance of that tradition hold it as sacred as Easter Mass. They know the holiday’s songs, from “When Irish Eyes Are Smiling” to “Danny Boy,” as well as they know their favorite Christmas carols and they sing them with the same fervor.
For the sons and daughters of Erin, the rarified atmosphere and lovely surroundings make Coleman’s the perfect spot to hoist a pint in honor of the patron saint of the Emerald Isle. Grids of windows segment the interior partitions that separate the bar from dining areas. The rich decor is warmed by such charming touches as the original tin ceiling and dozens of framed artworks and unusual artifacts. The focal point is the lush, dark oak bar, custom crafted to resemble the bar in Jury’s Pub in Ireland. There is a gift shop selling Coleman’s hooded sweat shirts, beer mugs and the like, and even a theme song you hear if you’re put on hold after calling the restaurant.
The current look is a far cry from the humble local hangout Coleman inherited. “In those days it was a totally different atmosphere,” bartender-turned-police captain Walsh asserts. “You had two rooms with the backroom. The barroom had a pool table and a foosball machine and it was pretty much all guys and was a pretty colorful place with a lot of classic characters. It wasn’t fancy by any means.”
Mary Pat Coleman is leading the family in updating the restaurant’s look for its 75th anniversary with new upholstery, carpeting and wallpaper, while Peter acknowledges a somewhat diminished role in his 47th year as owner. “The third generation is running this now,” he concedes. “Dennis Coleman is the manager, my baby. They’re all involved.”
Coleman’s initial idea included the enhancement of the bar’s reputation as much as the structural renovation. “I want to have it be a place that if you come to Syracuse, you go to the zoo, go to the Dome, do whatever you’ve gotta do, but you’ve gotta go to Coleman’s,” he says. “If you’ve ever been to Philadelphia, there’s Bookbinder’s. Chicago has the great Burgoff’s. These are places where, you go to these cities, you have to go there. That’s what my dream was and that’s happened, big time. We get calls. People come from Rochester or Buffalo or whatever and they get lost. So we rent a billboard at Caloia’s down on West Genesee Street. I’ve rented that sign for the last 15 years.”
Although his life’s work seems to have equaled his spectacular vision, Coleman remains tireless in planning and promoting the community he loves. “When people come to Coleman’s, he wants them to see more of the neighborhood,” McKenna notes. “So he positions a statue of Jerry Wilson a block from the pub. We’ve got the Celtic cross down on Wilbur. He was instrumental in getting the Stone Throwers monument put up, so he’s obviously not just wanting people to go to Coleman’s. He wants them to see the neighborhood and all of these little attractions are helping. People who visit my office always comment on the neighborhood, always.”
Raising the bar: From its early days as a dive, Coleman’s Authentic Irish Pub has evolved into one of the premier neighborhood pubs in all of Syracuse, with such details as a miniature version of the mule monument that stands outside the Erie Canal Museum and stunning stained glass and wood decor. Michael Davis photo.
Now, with the neighborhood association, the city of Syracuse and many local businesses, homeowners and tenants on board, the planning for more improvements to the neighborhood forges ahead with one now-famous pub owner in the lead. The projections include new, classic-style lampposts with banners and flowerpots, continued renovation and beautification of properties and more decorative touches, like fancy fencing in high-visibility spots.
“He told me some of the things he would like to see happening in the neighborhood,” says McKenna, whose Warne/McKenna Advertising is on Lowell Avenue, a block north of Coleman’s. “One of my artists would draw some of the things that Peter envisioned and many of the things that he envisioned have come to reality. He says he’ll run out of time before he runs out of ideas.”
For Coleman himself, the passion still burns, while he finds new ways to contribute, like his promotion of the Wednesday, March 12, 7:30 p.m., appearance of the Irish band the Saw Doctors at the Mulroy Civic Center’s Crouse-Hinds Theater, 411 Montgomery St. Opening is the Syracuse Celtic-rock band the Causeway Giants. Tickets cost $20 and $30. Call 472-0700. “The bottom line is I love what I’m doing, being part of the neighborhood in a strong way,” he says. “Running an Irish saloon is like dying and going to heaven. At this stage in my life, what a way to earn a living.”
In addition to the Saw Doctors concert, being held to commemorate Coleman’s diamond anniversary, celebrate St. Patrick’s Day early on Monday, March 17, with a breakfast buffet at Coleman’s with deejays Ted Long and Amy Robbins of WNTQ-FM 93.1 (93Q) from 7 to 10 a.m. Then head outside to Tompkins Street for the annual painting of the shamrock at 10 a.m. The buffet costs $5 and features bacon, sausage, eggs, potatoes, pastries and beverages. Call 476-1933.
