Downtown’s St. Patrick’s Day Block Party Is Back—in a New Spot

Photo: Courtesy of Events International

For the first time in seven years, one of Downtown’s biggest block parties is making a comeback. The St. Patrick’s Day Street Festival, an annual Nu‘uanu Avenue tradition that ran for more than 30 years until the pandemic, returns on Tuesday, March 17, to a new venue on Fort Street Mall.

Aside from the site change, other traditions will remain intact. “Quite honestly, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. It’s back, and it’ll be similar,” says organizer Rich Schneider of Events International. “There’ll be a lot of Irish food—corned beef and cabbage, fish and chips and other food. We’re trying to get oysters. We want everybody to come and wear the green.”

Photo: Courtesy of Events International

Also on tap for the 4 to 10 p.m. festival, which will run between King and Hotel streets, will be “plenty of Guinness and Jamesons, and we’ll be mixing black and tans,” Schneider says. “Celtic Pipes & Drums will go down the mall. We’ve got a bunch of Irish rock bands on one stage, and the second stage will have bands playing Irish-inflected music.”

Photo: Courtesy of Events International

Other Irish rock bands in the lineup are 7 Pairs of Iron Shoes and Peter Bond and the Whatevers. New this year will be what Schneider calls a dining hall—a section of Pickles at Forte, the pickleball facility in what used to be Walmart, where people can buy food, sit, eat and listen to live bands.

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In its heyday on Nu‘uanu outside Murphy’s Bar & Grill, the event drew an estimated 8,000 to 10,000 celebrants. For years until  2019, Murphy’s owner Don Murphy organized the St. Patrick’s Day block party. Two years ago, he approached Schneider about giving it back to Events International, which launched the festival in the 1980s, Schneider says. And when the Fort Street Mall Business Improvement District Association asked to host the event to help revitalize the neighborhood, that sealed it: No streets had to be closed to traffic, and new rules allow for sales of alcohol.

“Those guys will do a great job, I think. All those years of block parties was enough for me,” Murphy says. “Back in those days, in the parking lot [on Marin Street in front of Murphy’s], we sold 3,000 pounds of corned beef that day. And we had an oyster bar, it was fabulous. I was really proud of it.

“It was good fun. We had a ball. But I’m 76 years old, so that’s enough already.”

Murphy’s will be open on St. Patrick’s Day, though it won’t take part in the block party. Nor will it be business as usual: The menu will be pared down to corned beef and cabbage, Guinness-braised lamb shank, Gaelic steak and Caesar salad with salmon; desserts will be Irish whiskey cake, bread pudding and key lime pie.

With the restaurant short-staffed, all this is for dine-in only on St. Patrick’s Day. There’ll be takeout on other days and special hours.

Meanwhile, Schneider is hoping for a turnout of up to 4,000 next Tuesday. “This is our first one of this ilk, and it’s kind of like a shakedown to see what works and what doesn’t,” he says. “It doesn’t hurt that it’s a legacy that a lot of people want back.”

St. Patrick’s Day Street Festival on Fort Street

When: Tuesday, March 17, 4–10 p.m.
Where: Fort Street Mall between King and Hotel streets
Admission: Free
Information: @eventsinternational

Mari Taketa is the editor of Frolic Hawai‘i and dining editor of HONOLULU Magazine.