Legendary Langan’s Saloon Returns to Rock Center Nabe

Langan’s, a legendary watering hole that was a favorite saloon of theater goers, Broadway stars, and New York Post reporters and editors, reopened on W. 47th, just in time for the holiday season.

The original shut down in 2018, ending a 25-year run on the block between Sixth and Seventh Avenues. It reopened on the same block on Dec. 6.

”We’re back on 47th St. after all those years,” said Des O’Brien, the County Tipperary, Ireland-born proprietor and one of the three co-owners.

The food he said is “modern American with a few Irish dishes.”

He’s teaming with two other Irishmen: Robert Mahon, the son of O’Brien’s original partner, John Mahon; and Pat Burke. The trio are already partners running 15 other restaurants around the city.

Mahon said the new establishment is aiming for that sweet spot in the middle market somewhere between “high end restaurants and pubs. There’s almost nothing in between.” The aim is good food, that won’t break the bank.

O’Brien said after Langan’s originally closed, they approached the Durst Organization two times about the current site. Another restaurant came and went at the location before the real estate developer finally okayed a deal with them.

“The third time was the charm,” said O’Brien, a tall and gregarious gentleman that many regard as on a par with Jimmy Neary or Eamon Doran or Toots Shoor–legendary Big Apple saloon keepers of yore.

He estimates the trio poured nearly $1 million into the renovation, remodeling a place that previously housed a failed Mexican restaurant. Everything was ripped out in a gut renovation. It now has a huge horseshoe shaped bar with four complete bar set ups and seating for up 34 people at the bar alone. There are leather banquettes lining one wall and an open floor plan to the rear where dining tables can be set up or which could be cleared for parties.

It had been a sad day for the New York Post, when the original closed. The tabloid had relocated from its old HQ at 210 South St. to the new HQ at 1211 Sixth Ave. about a year after Langan’s opened and it quickly became the paper’s favored watering hole. Some of the classic covers from the tabloid adorn the walls in the new Langan’s. One mock cover that the paper made for O’Brien when the bar was closing in January, 2018 features the late columnist Steve Dunleavy with the headline “Auld Langan’s Syne,” with the skylight saying, “Last Call for Our Saloon” and “Thanks for Getting the Post Drunk.”

Back in the days of a bitter tabloid war when print circulation still mattered, the then-editor Col Allan convened the entire Post staff for a raucous party at Langan’s when the Post’s paid circulation finally passed its arch rival, the Daily News. The front page headline “Circulation Shocker” and “Thanks New York” now hangs in the new Langan’s.

Full disclosure, Langan’s is also was where the Kelly Gang Inc. charity was hatched involving this reporter, the then-police commissioner Ray Kelly and other media types with the same surname including the then-editor of Time magazine Jim Kelly, “Empire Rising” novelist Tom Kelly and the late Atlantic editor and columnist Michael Kelly. A year after Michael Kelly’s trek to Langan’s from Boston for our get together, he would became the first American journalist killed in the first Iraq War. His death is what turned the Kelly Gang into a fundraising charity that raised over $1 million in the ensuing 15 years. O’Brien always contributed Broadway show tickets and dinner to be raffled off each year at the annual fundraiser.

O’Brien says he will soon be hanging the Post story by Steve Dunleavy about our long ago St. Patrick’s Day gathering on the wall.

When Ray Kelly heard that Langan’s was reopening, he texted, “We should go soon.”

So entwined was the pub with the tabloid that when the Post held its annual Take Your Child to Work Day, it was understood that Phoebe O’Brien, one of Des O’Brien’s three daughters, would be welcomed to take the bus to tour the Post’s printing plant in the Bronx.

When the original pub closed some years later, former Page Six scribe Jeane MacIntosh took a picture of her daughter Katie and Phoebe, both by then in their early 20s and posted it on Facebook with the caption: “These two learned to crawl in this pub: fittingly last night they crawled out of here.”

”So many great memories,” said MacIntosh, who adds that her daughter and O’Brien’s daughter “are still best friends.”

O’Brien said the restaurant and bar business has gotten tougher over the years. And there is a lot more bureaucratic red tape to contend with just to get a place to open. Originally, he hoped to open before Thanksgiving. The night of a dry run on Dec. 5 was the same night as the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree lighting but only special guests were allowed in that night before the real opening two days later.

”There’s a lot of bureaucratic b.s. you have to cut through to open a restaurant these days, but the thing that is great about this business is the people you meet,” said O’Brien. “A lot of them become your friends for life.”

The feeling is mutual for a new generation. Kirsten Fleming, a features columnist at the Post was among a handful of invited guests for the dry run on Dec. 5. “It’s a modern, beautiful space with an elevated decor that harkens back to the original: green banquettes and homage to the watering hole’s patron saint Steve Dunleavy. But the best part was walking into a pub on 47th St. after deadline and seeing Des O’Brien to meet me there with a hug and smile.”

She added, “It’s going to be a pleasure to introduce a new generation of Posties to Langans.”