Johnny Mac purchases Bistro Olé building
New "Mary Mac" bar planned upstairs with beer garden below. Olé will continue in operation.
With John McGillion’s purchase of the Bistro Olé building, a beer garden is one step closer to Main Street.
McGillion, owner of Johnny Mac House of Spirits, is scheduled to close on the purchase of the neighboring building this Friday. Bistro Olé, a restaurant serving Spanish and Portuguese cuisine, will remain in operation, he said.
McGillion plants to open another bar — Mary Mac — on the second floor of his newly acquired property. Mary Mac will be accessible through an entrance on Mattison Avenue.
Mary Mac and Johnny Mac will be connected by a beer garden and second-floor outdoor mezzanine planned for the parking lot that currently sits between the two buildings, McGillion said. He is hopeful the beer garden will be open this summer, while the mezzanine should be open by next year.
The northernmost exterior wall of Johnny Mac’s now has a façade making it look like an Irish village, and this design theme will continue with the beer garden, McGillion said. A plan for the beer garden (shown with McGillion in the photo at top) is on display in the parking lot.
The beer garden will also boast a full-service restaurant. McGillion has stuck to running bars and not restaurants for years, although many of his bars give away free food — like pizza and sometimes omelets at Johnny Mac’s — with the purchase of a drink.
This will not be his first time overseeing a full kitchen, though. Years ago, he ran “the worst restaurant in the Bronx” under the name Johnny Mac, he said.
“It was Irish-American [food],” he said. “It was a limited menu — but it was a disaster for me. There’s a big difference between a bar and a kitchen. It’s like day and night. There’s no comparison.”
This time, McGillion intends to stick with the bar end of business and bring in someone else to handle the food service, he said. He isn’t sure yet who that will be or what type of food will be served.
McGillion has quickly expanded his footprint in Asbury Park of late.
He also hopes to open a restaurant at the site of the former Adriatic bar, which he purchased recently, on Kingsley Avenue in the waterfront area. His still-unnamed bar and restaurant there will cater to the gay community, he said. He is running a contest for a member of the public to come up with a name. McGillion also hopes to open a hostel in that building.
The operation at the Adriatic is intended as a precursor to a larger hostel and gay-themed bar he’s planning for the old YMCA building on Main Street, which he also recently purchased.
At the YMCA building, McGillion plans to open a hostel on the top three floors, which contain office space and room for 48 residential units.
Of opening hostels, he said, “Why not? It’s fun dealing with young people. I’m a big traveler and I’ve spent a lot of time in hostels myself. It’s a comfortable thing to get involved in.”
His business partner Troy Carlson will handle the operations of those two bars, he said. McGillion also owns nine bars in Brooklyn, four of which cater to the gay community.
McGillion opened his first bar on Oct. 1, 1968, in the Bronx, he said. Johnny Mac’s is the only one of his current bars to have an Irish theme. Ironically, he said he went with the Irish theme because at the tavern’s inception in 2010, he thought this would be the last bar he ever opened.
“Because it was the last one, I was paying more attention to it,” he said. “Now it seems like it’s not going to be the last one.”
McGillion’s other business partner, Zef Gjini, will oversee construction on all of the new projects, he said.
McGillion said he is expanding his presence in Asbury because he enjoys the feel of the city.
“Asbury Park is a neighborhood,” he said. “It’s compact. The people here are very good. Our Brooklyn crowd is all artists, musicians, dancers, sculptors, writers. Down here, it’s the same mentality of very liberal, artsy people … But there are no neighborhoods left [in the city].”
He hopes the new beer garden will bring even more character to the town — and also increase Johnny Mac’s summer numbers.
“Summer’s not good for us because everyone goes to the ocean,” he said. “We’re trying to get these outdoor bars so we can have a summer crowd.”