A pub’s success relies on bedrock elements such as its service and food, but an intangible and immensely valuable asset is its ability to make customers feel at home, as though they are with family.
Sean Heather understood this in the early 1990s when he opened his first of what are now six eateries: the Irish Heather.
Heather’s sister, Roisin, worked at the pub, as did his wife, Erin, whom he first met when she was a customer. Together, the trio fostered a homespun family atmosphere that has helped the pub thrive to this day.
Family can also help when operating a pub because there is often an implicit trust and it is possible for a second generation to learn the business at a very young age.
Jeff Donnelly, who is perhaps Vancouver’s most successful pub operator with 17 venues in his Donnelly Group, had that advantage. His father, Peter Donnelly, owned a series of hotels and bars in Vancouver, Victoria and later Seattle.
Chris Mahony, who operates three Mahony and Sons pubs with four brothers, similarly told Business in Vancouver that he also was able to learn from his father, Peter Mahony.
The elder Mahony formerly owned the Woods Hotel in Coquitlam, the Wheelhouse Pub in Surrey and the Fort Pub in Langley. The Mahony family still owns North Delta’s Delta Lion Pub, which Chris’ brother Greg operates.
“I grew up in a large family of 11 kids so I’ve got eight brothers and two sisters,” Chris said. “At any given dinner there could be 30 to 40 people if everyone had a couple people over or there were relatives visiting.
That’s where we learned the hospitality part of the business.”
He credits his father, however, for instilling in him the importance of having a great menu.
“From the mid-1980s, my father always saw the future of the business being in the food side of the operations – developing great menus and building great kitchens to execute the menus,” Chris said.
When he and brothers Peter Jr., Mike, Gerard and Paddy opened their first Mahony and Sons pub at the University of British Columbia (UBC) across from the War Memorial Gym in 2006, they put that insight into practice.
“There is a trust that comes with being family,” Chris said. “When we grew up we all got along, and there hasn’t been any conflict working together in the family business.”
Each brother also knows his role.
Chris, who at 43 is the eldest sibling, has an overarching role. He handles business development, marketing and financial arrangements with banks. Mike, 40, is general manager of the UBC pub while Peter, 38, is general manager of the brothers’ newest pub on Stamps Landing, which opened in August.
The two youngest of the five Mahony and Sons principals, 33-year-old Gerard and 34-year-old Paddy, run the Mahony and Sons pub outside the Vancouver Convention Centre.
“Irish pubs are traditionally homey and cozy and comfortable,” Chris said. “Our spaces are that, but there are layers of detail that we have in the design.”
One small detail that shows how the brothers revere their pub-owning ancestors is that they took a handwriting sample from their great-grandfather Finbar’s wedding certificate and used that scrawl as the script used in the core of the company’s name. They added the words “and Sons” in the same handwriting.
Finbar was chosen because he ran the Good Woman Pub in Australia in the 1870s
