Louis Connelly’s Bar will open February 3rd in the space formerly occupied by Printer’s Alley at 322 South Cleveland Street near Peabody Avenue.
They will have a full bar, says Mickey Blancq, manager of the bar owned by Louis Connelly. “We have a fantastic liquor selection,” Blancq says. “We have 20 taps. At least 15 of the taps are local.”
Food will be “straight-up bar food. Smash burgers, nachos, loaded fries. And just stuff like that. The Philly Cheese is phenomenal.”
As for the look of the establishment, Blancq says, “We completely gutted the whole place. So, it’s totally different on the inside.”
There is now “a huge bar on the left side. We’ve built out the kitchen, so it’s a full kitchen.”
And, he says, their interior designer went to pawn shops and brought back “so much cool stuff. We were blown away.” That includes a 1932 neon bar sign that’s “old school and awesome.”
They’ve already held soft openings. “I’ve been so surprised how it’s just popping off already. We never expected it to be as successful as we’ve been so far.”
Louis Connelly’s Bar will be “open late night, 3 p.m. to 3 a.m. Tuesday through Saturday currently. But we’ll open that up further in the future.”
No live music right now, Blancq says. “We will have deejays, but that’s the only plan right now.”
And, he says, they plan to have “karaoke and trivia night.”
Printer’s Alley, which closed about a year and a half go, didn’t have the greatest reputation. “Printer’s Alley was always the place to go after you’d made a lot of bad decisions already.”
But, Blancq says, “This is a different place. That’s why he (Connelly) did all the renovations. It’s still a 100 percent dive bar and that’s what we’re going for, but it’s clean and kitschy. Just a neighborhood bar like we’ve been missing here in town.”
