And His Unfiltered Warmth

My dad’s been talking about this place for a while now, though I hadn’t caught the name.  “Fabulous place that has Irish music on Thursday nights.  I’d like to head there with you."  This isn’t exactly my dad’s normal M.O. but it sounded like good craic, certainly.  I envisioned a loud pub of which there are a few with shamrocks a-plenty, out on our Main Street.

It’s tough going in New Paltz when the students are all on vacation for the winter.  Every restaurant for twenty miles seems to have decided to shutter up for the next two weeks, with little announcements on all their websites that they’d only reopen or business around January 20^th or so.  It was during this search I came across Garvan’s, which happened to be open for business. 

I’d only budgeted a moment to get there for our reservation and took flack, from everyone as it wasn’t where I’d said it would be.  Not much of a local, I thought Huguenot Street meant it was downtown.  Come to realize this is a stretch of the rail trail I pass every other day or so, most of the way to Springtown Road and that the restaurant is in an old house from 1759 set back in the woods that used to be called the Rock and Rye.

Garvan McCloskey himself welcomed us at the door. Before we knew it we were discussing the clouds of Glencolumbkille, in Donegal as he'd be leading a tour soon, and he’d welcomed us into one of the warm little rooms of the place.  Billed as a ‘gastropub’ the menu didn’t bother trying to dress itself up as “Irish.”  The food was hearty and my daughter liked her scampi as much as I did my roasted chicken.  The proprietor came to chat a few times and his unfiltered warmth solidified the collective confirmation that we’d all like to return.  Perhaps on a Thursday night when there is music on as well.  I shamelessly remind my daughter's of the stereotype they, themselves formed during the brief time we had there:  "Everybody is so friendly."  

Monday 01/13/20