Duo’s passion revives Tom Bergin’s beloved Irish Pub
PAIR, Derek Shreck and Jordan Delp, reopened the 65-year-old bar.
To many in Miracle Mile, Derek Schreck and Jordan Delp—animated, passionate, and so in-sync that they can finish each other’s sentences—are nothing short of local heroes.
After numerous fits and starts, the pair reopened Tom Bergin’s, the beloved Irish Pub in January, with an abiding commitment to honor its generational roots while making it precisely the kind of place their 30-something peers would choose to spend their evenings.
The two actors knew Tom Bergin’s intimately. Delp managed the iconic pub while it was owned by Werner Ebbink and chef Brandon Boudet. Schreck, living practically across the street, regarded Bergin’s as his local.
“Derek and I became fast friends,” recalls Delp, “and we’d talk through various concepts, wanting to someday do our own thing. One day I got a call from a server saying, ‘Bergin’s is closing’.
Derek called a half hour later and said, ‘Why don’t I buy it; you can run it; it will be great.’ We saw a fork in the road and knew which way we wanted to go.”
After a week of emotional farewells and final Irish coffees, Bergin’s was shuttered in July 2013.
A CROWD showed up for Bergin’s reopening in January.
Distraught community members met, rumors of a reopening circulated, and finally, after clearing numerous code hurdles, Delp and Schreck placed a single post on Facebook announcing Tom Bergin’s reopening on January 4.
They anticipated a quiet sort of soft opening. Within three hours of posting on Facebook however, the L.A. Times food blog picked up the news and it quickly received 5000 hits. “Other than St. Patrick’s Day, it was the busiest we’d ever seen this place,” Schreck recalls. “People were five deep at the bar.”
As Schreck and Delp know all too well, the next step in keeping the 65-year-old public house vital is attracting a new generation. “That doesn’t mean compromising anything,” explains Delp. “Bergin’s is a safe welcoming place and there are very few of those.” He and Schreck nod at one another.
With a carefully curated food and bar menu focused on local, seasonal ingredients and a promise to keep prices down, they’re intent on cultivating a loyal clientele that can afford to be regulars.
Delp pauses and grins, “We view this job as more of a passion than anything else. This bar belongs to Los Angeles. We are strictly the stewards who signed on to keep patrons coming in here.”
Category: Entertainment
