Mary Margaret’s Irish pub expands as demand keeps growing in downtown St. Pete

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Mary Margaret’s in downtown St. Pete will nearly double in size by expanding into the Top Slice Pizzeria space | St. Pete Rising

On a busy Friday night, the challenge at Mary Margaret’s Olde Irish Tavern is not finding a good pint of Guinness. It is finding a place to sit, order dinner, or even make it to the restroom.

The downtown St. Pete pub is often filled shoulder to shoulder with live-music fans, soccer supporters, dinner guests, and late-night crowds.

Publican Pete Boland, who also co-owns The Galley and The Ship’s Hold, said the space has become so consistently busy that an expansion next door has shifted from a longtime idea into a necessity.

Mary Margaret’s, at 29 3rd Street North, will expand this winter into the neighboring Top Slice Pizzeria space.

The expansion marks a full-circle moment for Boland, whose grandmother, named Mary Margaret, operated a salon out of the Top Slice Pizzeria space back in the 1970s. 

The Irish pub currently occupies about 1,600 square feet, and the 1,400-square-foot addition will more than double its seating capacity with roughly 50 new seats, a second 12-seat bar, more patio tables, and additional restrooms.

“We’re packed to the gills,” Boland said in a conversation with St. Pete Rising. “It’s become a logistical challenge. Where do I put empty kegs? Where do I put the beer? Where do I put people?”

Construction is expected to begin in early October, although the original Mary Margaret’s will remain open throughout the work.

Boland hopes to have the new space ready by Christmas, or at least before the pub’s seventh anniversary in February and the rush surrounding St. Patrick’s Day.

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Mary Margaret’s is often filled shoulder to shoulder with live-music fans, soccer supporters, dinner guests, and late-night crowds | Mary Margaret’s

Mary Margaret’s will keep its existing bar, live Irish music schedule, and nightly personality. Instead, a hallway door at the back of the pub will lead into a new room built around dining, private events, and an open-air bar facing 3rd Street North.

The new space will also give Boland the ability to separate different experiences that currently compete for space inside one small room.

Mary Margaret’s hosts live Irish music six nights a week and karaoke on the seventh, but it can be difficult to accommodate a big soccer match, a Notre Dame game, and live entertainment at the same time.

The added room will allow the pub to show a game in one space while music continues in the other.

It will also create room for the guests Mary Margaret’s has often had to turn away: families looking for dinner, groups of 10, company parties, wedding receptions and birthday celebrations.

“We’ll have a dining room, we’ll have a private party room, and it’s going to improve the guest experience,” Boland said.

For Boland, who attended culinary school at the Art Institute of Tampa and began working in restaurants at 14, the extra dining space matters as much as the second bar.

Mary Margaret’s has built a following for fish and chips, shepherd’s pie, and bangers and mash, but its crowded layout does not always make it easy for guests to settle in for a meal.

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Mary Margaret’s full Irish breakfast | Mary Margaret’s

“I don’t sacrifice the quality of food,” he said. “We buy good ingredients and we treat them right. We take it very seriously, and now we’ll be able to have more of that dining atmosphere.”

The pub’s growth has also created more back-of-house pressure too.

Boland said Mary Margaret’s goes through about 14 to 15 kegs of Guinness each week even during August, with that total increasing to around 20 to 30 kegs in peak season, making Mary Margaret’s one of the largest Guinness purveyors in the state. 

The expanded space will include a second walk-in cooler, allowing the team to move keg storage out of the current cooler and create more room for the restaurant side of the operation.

Fraze Design Inc. is designing the expansion, with Silverwood Designs handling millwork. Boland expects the expansion to add about 10 jobs.

Next door, Top Slice Pizzeria operator Shan Bakrac plans to combine the pizza concept with sister restaurant Black Cattle Burger Co. in the Black Cattle space, which operates on the same block. The result will be a reworked fast-casual concept centered on pizza and smashburgers.

Boland said he and Bakrac began discussing the expansion about two years ago. Now, both businesses are preparing for significant changes on the same block.

“I think we're going to just really blow it out of the water—we're so excited about it,” Boland said. “We’ve had this vision for a long time.”