An Agreeable Place In Utica

I f, upon entering the Shamrock Pub in Utica, you feel like a present-day Goldilocks and sense the place is “just right,” join the club.

“Some of our customers, I knew them as children when their parents brought them in,” says Joe Mayernik. “And now, they are bringing in their own grandchildren.”

The Shamrock might rightly be considered the “patriarch” among businesses in Utica’s tiny downtown district. It’s been the neighborhood’s bar since 1935, back when Joe Louis’s training camp was about a mile away and most of the surrounding area consisted of farmlands. Even into the 1960s, a good chunk of the drive up Van Dyke (M-53) to Utica consisted of dirt roads.

Likewise, Joe has been part of a good chunk of the ’Rock’s 89-year history. He started tending bar here 42 years ago and now, along with his wife, Molly, owns the place.

While the Shamrock doesn’t shout HISTORICAL!, a number of its cozy features pay tribute to the old days. The most noticeable are its bare brick walls, 40-foot long bar, tables and chairs made of “good wood,” and the expansive backbar with its art deco mirror. Everything but the bricks was destroyed in a 2006 fire; it was essential to restore the bar to its role as a “comfort zone for patrons. The Shamrock is comfortable and warm,” says Joe.

Over the decades it’s evolved into a social hub for the community.

“Every community needs a hamburger place. You know, just a nice, pleasant place where things are not overpriced.” A place where the TVs and music don’t overpower table conversations.

The Shamrock has become that place in the Utica area.

“We hear that all the time from people who come in,” says Molly.

Joe adds, “We’ve been very, very lucky.”

In a voice that conveys astonishment, gratitude, and just a trace of a sense of achievement, he says, “The place is important to people,” — of all stripes.

“It’s amazing, but people will come here from all over,” he says, mentioning enough locations to qualify simply as “Southeast Michigan.”

Molly reminds him, “and since Utica itself is enjoying renewed popularity as a destination, more and more people are discovering it and, as a result, us.”

The ’Rock is enough of a local bar that among its regulars are workers — both from nearby businesses and mobile — who stop for lunch, retirees who are longtime patrons, community leaders who drop in after meetings, coaches and boosters who celebrate — or commiserate — after athletic events at the several schools in the area, recreation softball or basketball teams after their games and more. Some locals have held wedding showers here and retirement parties. And more than one freshly-wedded couple has stopped in for photos en route from church to its reception.

The ’Rock is enough of an attraction that people will stop in either before or after shopping trips, for a quiet nightcap, after visiting a “loud music” joint or just for a hamburger.

Ah, the hamburgers!

The simplest way to convey the quality of the Shamrock hamburger is to note the awards it’s received: Nine-time winner of the “Best Burger in Macomb County prize from Hour Detroit Magazine as well as at least a dozen other similar nods from area newspapers, and TV/radio stations.

“Every day, someone comes in for their first burger,” says Molly.

The unquestioned key to the friendly, relaxed atmosphere of the Shamrock? Its staff, says Joe, “those longtime servers who know everybody and enjoy what they do. Some of them worked here while going to school. They’re enjoying their main careers yet have come back to work part-time because they enjoy it so much.

“I’ve been fortunate to be able to find good people who focus on the right things. They know how to treat people and want to work together as a team, as a part of something and not apart from something.”

Those are the folks who are waiting to make your visit to the Shamrock, “just right.”

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