Finnegan’s Wake / Dark Horse Tavern: First Impressions

And so it has come to pass that the Ropewalk dynasty has inhabited the long, long, long standing massiveness that is Canton’s 2324 Boston St., a property with a rich and luxurious history of failure. Its last iteration, Canton Arts and Entertainment, was open for less than six months due to what could only be described as “A complete and utter lack of focus, management, appeal or redeeming qualities.” (quote by me). This time around, with current inhabitants in the form of Finnegan’s Wake Pub and Dark Horse Tavern, it would seem many of those issues seem to have been addressed. Let’s break this down, shall we?

Update: unbeknownst to me there is in fact a Dark Horse in Bel Air so just replace all instances of “Stalking Horse” in this FI with “Dark Horse Bel-Air.” Also I’m told the full Finnegan’s menu will not be exactly like Delia Foley’s. Thanks to @mollyethomas for the tip!

The Decor

Not surprisingly, and this is going to be a central theme here, Finnegan’s Wake and Dark Horse – both of which are connected by an open-air doorway for enhanced flow – are near carbon copies of their respective more westerly counterparts in the Federal Hill area, Delia Foley’s and Stalking Horse. In fact, Finnegan’s is so similar to Delia Foley’s that some of the ornamental statues are actually the exact same, as well as its ornamental flags and color scheme. Dark Horse on the other hand seems to have received a bit of enhanced decoration to set it apart from Stalking Horse with a “Tex-Mex” feel, featuring oodles of cow skulls and horse heads adorning the walls, a gigantic bucking horse statue at the entrance, and this giant mural of Clint Eastwood (and his absolutely enormous right hand):

So the Stalking Horse decor gets a bit of tweaking, while the “Epcot Center Irish Establishment” appears to be working itself as something of a turnkey operation – plus there’s a pool table, so that’s pretty nice. Whether or not the upstairs portion of the building will ever be used is in question, but more on that later.

The Food / Drinks / Specials

Here’s the short version: Everything here is the same as at Delia Foley’s and Stalking Horse, with a few minor tweaks primarily to the menu at Dark Horse Tavern.

Dark Horse has its slushies, Finnegan’s has its Irish beers and Jameson, and the happy hour specials ($2.50 drafts, $3 slushies, $0.49 wings, etc) remain intact as well. The wing menu consists of 30 varieties, some of which have been renamed to fit Dark Horse’s Tex Mex feel, but generally the 15-varieties-on-each-side has the same flavors you’d see at the other two establishments. Finnegan’s menu is essentially identical to Delia Foley’s, and although the menu was a limited version I can’t imagine that the full version would be much different. Dark Horse, on the other hand, has changed a bit from its counterpart to include a somewhat odd mix of MD cuisine-meets southwest BBQ with Chevy’s style Tex-Mex flare – tacos, burritos, and so forth – thrown in. Oh, and crab cake egg rolls (huh?).

I sampled one such tex-mex item, the BBQ pulled chicken enchilada* ($12). The enchiladas were decent, stuffed with tasty smoked pulled chicken and covered with cheddar, BBQ sauce and some sort of chipotle-what-have-you. The yellow rice was decent too, but boy howdy for twelve bucks I could just as easily mosey over to Chipotle and buy two whole burritos and not be able to walk home afterward, whereas this thing was gone in a flash, my appetite not quite so much.

Regardless, since Austin Grill closed a while back, Dark Horse could potentially flourish as a viable tex-mex option as far as food goes, whether or not folks in the area will flock to it for that or Finnegan’s “Irish Fusion” cuisine remains to be seen.

Potential and Potential Problems

There can be no denying that the space enjoyed by FW/DH is totally enormous; it could easily fit several hundred people and a full brass band on any night of the week, but the bajillion dollar question is whether or not management will ever be able to break the legacy of failure that previous iterations seemed to be unable to shake and fill the place at even half capacity. The management/ownership side of the issue seems to have been dealt with fairly well, a competent staff and set of folks from Ropewalk et al have run successful bars for quite some time in the Federal Hill area, but the “Boston St. curse” is strong and the perceived lack of accessibility to the building on the part of folks driving into the area can and will make it difficult to fill the place with warm bodies (despite the free parking along Boston St., the abandoned Osiris Therapeutics lot across from Captain James, and the free garage by the Can Company).

On the other hand, if you’re the kind of person who frequents Canton/O’Donnell Square and are a little tired of having to worm your way through 10,000 drunk patrons at Looney’s or Mama’s on a Friday night, it might be worth your while to opt for the comparatively wide open spaces provided by FW/DH. If management can ….manage to spread the word to that crowd, things could work out very nicely. The upstairs could be opened for overflow or as a lounge-type area should the need arise or used for private parties – there’s literally so much space there they could actually turn it into a small airport if they wanted to. Hopefully, with some wise decision making and the right draw, 2324 Boston St. will enjoy a decent, sustainable amount of business and pull off a healthy weekend evening party spot without succumbing to its predecessors’ fates.

*I swear to god some day I’ll have a decent camera phone. Some day.