Happy St. Patrick’s Day
McAteer’s brings Irish heritage celebration to Fairmont
Every year on St. Patrick’s Day McAteer’s offers a corned beef and cabbage meal.
McAteer’s employee Duane Cochran said the restaurant has been doing a version of the meal every year since the 2000s. He said it started small as a special thing and now it has grown into just offering the full meal.
The restaurant started serving just corned beef and cabbage on St. Patrick’s Day in 2013, owner Tim McAteer said.
McAteer said the restaurant starts serving the meal at 9 a.m. It consists of corned beef, cabbage, red potatoes and a roll. McAteer’s opens at 9 a.m. today and closes when it runs out of food.
The cost is $14.50 for to-go orders and $16.50 for dine-in orders. The restaurant accepts cash and checks, but not credit cards, McAteer said.
The restaurant offers the meal as a way “to give Fairmont a little taste of the heritage of Fairmont and to say ‘Hey, this is what we do,’” McAteer said. “We like to share our heritage.”
On average, 300 people come to the St. Patrick’s Day meal at McAteer’s every year. That is double the normal amount of diners, McAteer said.
The preparation for the meal starts a week or more before St. Patrick’s Day.
“About a week or 10 days before, we’ll start boiling the corned beef,” McAteer said. “The night before we’ll start trimming and cutting the corn beef to size.”
The supplier McAteer’s orders the corned beef from sells it to them already seasoned. It is seasoned with pickling spices, old bay and other spices. The cut of meat is a brisket, McAteer said.
The corned beef sits in the fridge until it is time to be served. The night before St. Patrick’s Day it is sliced so it is ready for customers, he said.
The same people come every year with their families to enjoy St. Patrick’s Day at McAteer's. He plans on continuing this tradition, McAteer said.
McAteer is the youngest of eight children. His brother Joe and sisters Ellen, Cecily and Molly will come today and help him with the meal, he said.
“I love it, absolutely love it,” McAteer said about corned beef.
Corned beef is an acquired taste. A lot of people don’t like it, he said.
It’s not a real big meal in Ireland,” he said about corned beef and cabbage. “They have it, but its more of an Irish-American thing. I believe when the Irish came over here it was all they could afford.”
