Maguire’s Irish Pub faces permanent closure

In the wake of the first shutdown, Maguire’s Irish Pub owner Joe Pelleriti made a promise to himself.

As he powered down the bar’s boisterous neon signs illuminating Kentucky Street, he told himself he would turn them on again.

And three months later on June 24, he did, after the county once again allowed indoor dining, when regulars came rushing back to what has long been a beloved neighborhood watering hole.

But it proved to be a false start for the 38-year-old business owner, lasting just a few weeks before the county once again tightened restrictions amid growing coronavirus cases.

“When I turned them back off that night after we shut down again, I didn’t make that promise a second time,” he said. “I just knew. It felt like I was fighting something I just couldn’t fight anymore.”

Sitting on tens of thousands of dollars in back rent and months of no revenue, Pelleriti says he is facing potential eviction proceedings Feb. 1, unable to keep his business afloat as his landlord looks to sell the building. Instead of bright lights, the pub’s façade is now plastered with dun packing paper, with a large “For Sale” sign in its front window.

With the exception of those three brief summer weeks, Maguire’s has been closed for more than 10 months. Outdoor dining proved impossible to swing financially, Pelleriti said, pointing to what he says is scarce sidewalk space and capacity limitations.

By the end of January, the bar owner and long-time restaurant industry professional says he’s looking at nearly $75,000 in unpaid rent, and no way to catch up. He doubts any future owner of the building will allow him to stay in the space, seeing no path toward regaining his lost revenue.

“I’ve shed tears three or four times about it, I don’t know what else there is to do at this point,” he said. “I want to be mad at somebody, and I think a lot of people do. But I can’t blame the governor or Dr. Mase, it’s not their fault the virus came.”

Similarly, Pelleriti said he holds no ill will toward his landlord, who he did not explicitly name, but described as a “good guy” who was forced to make tough decisions for the sake of his financial health.

His only complaint, he says, is that the city didn’t close down Kentucky Street to vehicle traffic, a move that nearby cities, including Santa Rosa, San Rafael and San Francisco, have done.

Petaluma’s Economic Development Specialist Nancy Sands said a Kentucky Street closure is still a possibility that staff is kicking around, but explained that they decided to focus on providing tents and shutting down Water Street last year.

“Anytime we talk about closures, we get some people who are thrilled and others who are not thrilled about it,” she said. “We wanted to be really thoughtful about it, and we really found that Water Street was where there was more traffic and commercial activity.”

Pelleriti said he laid off his nine employees early on in the spring of 2020, while the proceeds from the federal payment protection loan failed to cover his rising debt from the continued costs of ownership, like business permits and insurance payments.

Located along a stretch of Kentucky Street that is home to a handful of bars, restaurants, personal services, boutiques and retail shops, Maguire’s is not the first to fall victim to the wide-reaching implications of the pandemic’s economic downturn. Before last March, the street was often packed with cars during the day, and coursing with loud music and rowdy patrons at night.

That block has seen other closures since the pandemic. Whisper Sisters bar and restaurant was the first to close in May, unable to make the rent work with no revenue. Wine or Lose Boardgame Cafe would follow in July.

Marie McCusker, executive director of the member-based Petaluma Downtown Association, says she’s noticed the pandemic has had a wildly different impact on some businesses over others. For the city’s bars, especially those that served as gathering places rather than places to grab a bite to eat, McCusker says the financial pain has been enormous.

“For bars like Maguire’s, there are really few options for them,” she said. “They have that restaurant element, but it’s very much a bar, and on those weekend nights, they were really a destination.”

The Irish pub was Pelleriti’s first restaurant, which he purchased in 2012 after it changed hands a few times since it was established in 2008.

He had spent years managing bars and eateries in the Bay Area, and was contemplating investing his life’s savings into a chunk of property in Petaluma. When he told his mom, Bodega Bay resident Virginia Bassi of his plan over lunch at Cucina Paradiso in 2011, she suggested an alternative investment.

They would go in on the bar together, she said, a family partnership that would allow him to leverage his passion and skills into his own establishment. By 2019, he had felt like he was finally making enough money to refurbish some of the building’s rear and spruce up the bar, investing nearly $20,000 in upgrades and repairs.

Nearing nine years of ownership, Pelleriti is expecting 2021 to be the last.

“We were not going to weather this without having casualties, unfortunately,” McCusker said of Petaluma’s downtown businesses. “And we’re not out of the woods yet, we have months to go until things even resemble normal again.”

(Contact Kathryn Palmer at kathryn.palmer@arguscourier.com, on Twitter @KathrynPlmr.)