Will Sports Bar Be Ready for Some Football?

Dan Murphy is working feverishly to open his new bar, Park Sports Bar & Grill in Long Beach, before the NFL season kicks off when the Denver Broncos host the Baltimore Ravens on Sept. 5.

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Construction workers are renovating the vacancy, at 20 W. Park Ave., and have already started to mount the 50 flat screen televisions that will monopolize wall space throughout the 12,000-square-foot unit. Murphy expects it will be one of the largest independent sports bars on Long Island.

“I’ve kind of been looking for a place like this for a while,” said Murphy, a Long Beach resident who owns an Irish bar in Manhattan called Murphy’s Law.  

The split-level unit will consist of about 6,000 square feet of public space and will seat some 200 patrons in booths and high tables. The upstairs will be lounge-like, with ottomans lining the walls, and which Murphy plans to open for catering events and meetings. The menu will emphasis steaks and seafood, sandwiches and wraps, and a variety of flavored wings, all of which he said will be priced “reasonably.” The bar will serve 30 tap beers, including domestic, foreign and craft. Murphy intends to hire as many as 70 employees, with a focus on local residents.

“I think it’s a place in Long Beach that’s been missing,” Murphy said when asked why he is opening a sports bar on the barrier island. “I think Long Beach deserves a place like this.”

The vacancy, housed in a building built in 1962, is located in an ideal location, opposite the Long Island Rail Road station, and has 30 parking spaces in a lot at the southwest corner of Edwards Boulevard and West Walnut Street. Yet in recent years restaurants at that location haven’t endured long: Corbin & Reynolds, Monterey, and Avenue Cafe.

Last October, prior to Hurricane Sandy, Patch reported that the owners of Avenue Cafe unexpectedly closed their doors, and Michael Kerr, president of the Long Beach Chamber of Commerce, said the diner was paying $16,000 a month in rent alone and struggled to meet its overhead costs during tough economic times, according to the Long Beach Herald.  

Paul Fetscher, president of Great American Brokerage, a Long Beach-based firm that specializes in restaurants and retail and represented Murphy, believes Corbin & Reynolds and Monterey went under primarily because their owners lived far away, in Suffolk County and the North Shore.

“You didn’t have ownership on site,” Fetscher said. “ … “Dan’s here and he’ll bring the hospitality,” he added when asked why he thought Murphy’s establishment could last.

While Murphy declined to reveal how much he invested in his Long Beach establishment, Fetscher indicated that because the unit had sustained damages during Sandy, he was able to work out a deal that was more favorable to his client. Murphy noted that he also has silent partner invested in his business.