Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

St. Patrick’s Day Parades

Today while I was researching St Patrick’s Day celebrations (and the street food that goes along with it), I discovered a fantastic site called newyorkstreetfood.com. You can bet that I will be browsing around this site a lot, dreaming about ordering from colorful concession trucks, wishing I still lived in New York City…

While they may not dye the river green like they do in Chicago, New York has the oldest and biggest St Patrick’s Day parade in the US. Visit stpatricksdayparade.com, the self-proclaimed ‘largest paradae website in the world’ for a one-stop source of information about St. Patrick’s Day parades happening all over the country. According to this site, the New York parade “…marches up 5th Avenue, clan by clan, from 44th to 86th streets starting at 11am on St. Patrick’s Day.”

Newyorkstreetfood.com reports that The Cupcake Stop (a cupcake store on wheels) is selling special boozy cakes just for St. Patrick’s Day.

Irish Food

The New York City official St Patrick’s Day Parade site provides a list of Irish restaurants and pubs where you can celebrate, but no information that I could see about street vendors. So, I checked out the websites and menus to see what traditional Irish foods you might be able to get out on the street during the parade, or just while you are strolling around…

According to the Pig n Whistle‘s menu (one of my favorite franchises), an Irish breakfast consists of eggs, bacon, grilled tomato, home fries, and black and white pudding. The Old Castle pub lists fish and chips and chicken pot pie under it’s ‘Irish Traditionals’ section. I couldn’t find evidence that any of these things are sold by street vendors in New York City (not even a breakfast sandwich or a chicken pot pie?!), so if anyone knows about any vendors like this please let me know!

In the meantime, my top pick for St. Patrick’s Day would be McSorley’s Old Ale House at 15 East 7th Street. Established in 1854, it is the oldest continuously running bar in New York City and its original proprietor John McSorley was born in Ireland in 1827.