Molloy’s Tavern Still a Favorite Haunt to Wake the Dead

Going south on the outskirts of San Francisco, is Molloy’s Tavern. It sits off the main road of El Camino Real set between the present and the past. In a town that’s dead quiet it still is a favorite haunt for spirits and music.

And when this reporter says spirits, it is the kind that gets poured into a glass some times over ice or with a twist. As for the music it can be Irish music for Molloy’s Tavern is very much a traditional pub, but whether Irish or contemporary music, it is mostly live music and very much a place for the living.

For Molloy’s is situated right across the street from Holy Cross Cemetery. In fact, the entire town of Colma, California where Molloy’s is located is filled with cemeteries. Colma is the graveyard for San Francisco.

“Back in 1883 it was built, then it was a hotel and tavern” said Pat Hatfield, president of the Colma Historical Association. “It has always been a tavern, a place for people to gather,” she said.

“It is literally a place to wake the dead, as the traditional sense of the word,”explained musician and local rock and roll performer turned historical author Dave Crimmen. He works one to two days a week at the historical society and museum, greeting visitors and answering the phone.

Crimmen and his band have played at Molloy’s several times. “It really is an Irish Pub type of place,” he said. “Molloy’s is the place were they make a toast for the dead and celebrate a person’s life after they paid respects to the departed,” said Crimmen.

Hatfield agreed as she said, it is the place were people go after funerals and it has been that way for over a century,” she said.

In the 1880’s as the City of San Francisco was growing, land became more valuable. City officials decided to move the cemeteries further away from the City. Relocating hundreds of graves, the little farming community of Lawndale was selected as the place to establish the cemeteries for San Francisco.

The moving of established graveyards in San Francisco continued in phases as ” thousands of others were hauled out in 1939-1940,” notes local historian Woody LaBounty.

Yet the initial establishing of cemeteries in what was then known as Lawndale was a major shift for the agricultural area. “before it was renamed as Colma, this was a farming community called Lawndale made up of mostly Italian and Irish immigrants who grew produce and had dairies,” said Hatfield.

The hotel and restaurant that would eventually become Molloy’s was originally Brooksville Hotel owned by the Brooks and Carey families. Over the years others managed or owned it, until the Molloy family took it over in 1937. It has been in the Molloy family ever since noted Hatfield.

Originally, is was built for the cemetery workers and all those who would come to the area for funerals. Hatfield said that the train and a trolley used to stop right at the hotel/tavern.

What had once been potato fields, dairy farms, artichoke patches and Brussels sprouts orchards was then converted to attend to the departed. Stone cutters, monument makers and flower growers became the business of the town and many of those family-owned establishments are still evident today in the area, like Bocci & Sons sculptures and monument makers.

There is a plaque at Molloy’s that commemorates pioneering citizens such as Joe Cavalli and his work as a blacksmith, then as a sheriff and then the chief of police. It gives witness to the transformation of the area and how the people adapted.

If you visit Colma which is adjacent to Daly City, South San Francisco and San Bruno, you will find each cemetery or memorial garden has its own style, character and outreach serving the diversity of one of the most popular places in the USA.

Crimmen explained that the map of the area gets confusing because these towns and sections of towns were unincorporated. In fact, some parts still are. “If you seek out Molloy’s on the web with ‘Map Quest’ or Yelp for example, said Crimmen, you will see that Molloy’s is listed as being in South San Francisco. “That’s because the US Postal Service placed that section of Colma, under the zip code for South San Francisco,” said Crimmen.

Crimmen gives a full detail of the complexity of the area in his recently published book about Broadmor Village

“All kinds of stuff about zoning like that goes on and is not uncommon, especially in those early days of urban expansion,” said Crimmen.

People like Crimmen and Hatfield and other locals have a lot of institutional memory in an area that is constantly changing. Perhaps this is why a place like Molloy’s off of El Camino Real on Old Mission Road is appealing to the locals and those weary of change.

Upon entering Molloy’s a few weeks ago, this reporter was treated to a shot of Irish whiskey from evening bartender Danny who was just starting his shift. “I have been working here for 10 years now and its hard to believe I have been here that long,” he said.

Daytime bartender Pat Murphy agreed as he was eager to let Danny takeover for the evening shift. He laughed when he began to think back to when Danny first started working at Molloy’s. “I did not think you were going to last that long, but lad you’ve been here now going on 11 years,” said Murphy in a distinct Irish brogue.

In fact, Murphy was not the only one with a bit of brogue in his voice. One of the patrons asked what a reporter was doing in a pub and that she did not want to have her photo taken. Yet Danny introduced this reporter to the patrons; and after gulping down a shot of that Irish whiskey and some really smooth and not too sweet hard apple cider Bernadette and other patrons were more willing to chat.

Crimmen later explained, “Irish are a cliquish group, they tend to keep to themselves and are slow to be friendly. But once you earn their friendship they are like gold.”

Bernadette with a brogue in her voice, said that she did not want to give out her last name or say exactly where she was from. But since the brogue was undeniable, she admitted, “I was born in Ireland but I am not going to say where.”

Many Irish are very proud of the county they were born or raised in. Ireland has 32 counties, each with its own sense of tradition, music and local flavor.

This was the first time that this reporter stepped inside Molloy’s for a visit other than a milestone celebration like a birthday, anniversary or because of a funeral.

It was told to this reporter also by parents and relatives that Molloy’s was and still is the place to go to “raise a glass” in honor of the departed. The frequent fog that billows through that area with Holy Cross Cemetery just tombstones throw away from Molloy’s does give flurry to the imagination to ponder if souls do come wondering in looking for solace or something familiar of this earthly existence in the warmth of the tavern.

Friday and Saturday nights there is live music and no doubt there is many happy memories to be made and shared among the living. Perhaps one of those psychic types like Sylvia Browne could do “a reading” and tally how many ghosts and spirits of the departed actually visit Molloy’s.

For as Browne might say something like, “there just on the other side dear, but they do like to stop in for a visit from time to time to see how everyone is doing.”

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This article appeared on Digital Journal News at : http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/308498#ixzz2OHqLez7C