Coral Gables’ most beloved Irish pub closed last year, but now it’s making a comeback
Martin Lynch was on the fifth hole of the Biltmore golf course when news went out that the Coral Gables Irish pub he cofounded, JohnMartin’s, would reopen with new owners.
Irish eyes smiled on St. Patrick’s Day.
Lynch and partner John Clarke closed their pub, one of the longest-running restaurants in South Florida, on its 31st anniversary in April of 2020. They had long planned to not renew their lease and ease into retirement, sped up by the coronavirus restaurant closures. That retirement was made perhaps more plush after they sold the name to Breakwater Hospitality Group and Black Market Miami owner Erick Passo, who announced Wednesday in a press release they would remodel and reopen JohnMartin’s in the fall of 2021.
“I’m really happy that the name will live on,” Lynch said. “We were giving up the lease one way or the other. And I think this is fantastic because it keeps the name going.”
The new JohnMartin’s is likely to be very different from the original.
“The place definitely needs some work, there’s no doubt about it,” Lynch said.
The new spot “will be updated with a new look and feel,” created by a design firm, Big Time Design Studio, which will handle the “reimagining of the space,” according to a press release from the new owners. The building is owned by Terranova, which writes that it wants to bring more multi-use spaces to Coral Gables.
“JohnMartin’s had a tremendous impact on South Florida’s bar scene, and you will be hard-pressed to find a restaurant or bar that rivals their iconic status and reputation for hospitality,” Emi Guerra, co-owner of Breakwater Hospitality, which built The Wharf, said in a press release. “Our team is proud to breathe new life into JohnMartin’s and to continue the tradition of providing the same welcoming service but with a fresh new look and feel suited for the times.”
The original bar was built the way Lynch and Clarke remembered the pubs from back in Ireland.
The pair, joined together since childhood like the restaurant’s name, emigrated from Killinkere parish, in northwest Dublin, to Miami in the early 1980s. With several Irish investor friends, they opened JohnMartin’s on Miracle Mile at a time when “you could roll a bowling ball down the center of the street and not hit anything,” Lynch recalled.
They helped changed local ordinances to allow drinking at the bar, and the pub brought life to Miracle Mile. JohnMartin’s became a late-night South Florida destination and after-work watering hole for locals.
And on St. Patrick’s Day, they were the center of a celebration that closed down the Mile for music, dancing and, yes, beer. They might easily go through 200 pounds of corned beef and 125 kegs of beer at their peak, Lynch told the Miami Herald in 2014.
On this St. Patrick’s Day, the sun shone down on Miracle Mile again.
“We felt all along that the name could be kept going,” Lynch said.
JohnMartin’s
Address: 253 Miracle Mile
Opening: Fall 2021
This story was originally published March 17, 2021 at 11:50 AM.
