Traditional Irish meets local Maine at South Portland favorite: The Griffin Club

Eddie Griffin, legendary Maine personality and philanthropist, opened the doors of his new cast-Irish pub in 1969. Humbly, it has sat on a beautiful South Portland peninsula, right there on Ocean Street for forty years. It has played host to famous Boston ballplayers of the 70's and 80's, and plenty of Eddie's favorite, the prizefighters of the day. Today, it stays afloat through a mutual labor of love between ownership and long time patronage.

"The characters make the place," offered the bartender, also named Eddie. "People been coming here for 40 years like clockwork. Stop by on a Friday, when the sponsor girls come in and they try to get people to drink, y'know, something different. It just isn't happening." Glancing around, it's no wonder the locals don't budge. Laminated into the bar is a vintage 60's colored wide-shot of the South Ireland coastline. The photo is just one piece of the paean.

There are laminated leprechauns, bits from Yeats and Joyce, clovers, you name it, Eddie literally brought the idea to the table. The Griffin Club celebrates a lot more than just the ol' emerald glens, too. For one thing, emblems of Christmas, Halloween and St. Patrick's Day all hang about uncaringly at once. Why not look forward or backward to all the holidays all the time? I order a Newcastle, an ale of the dreaded Brits, but on sale today for $3.00 a pint.

As far as food, there's no menu, but there's always something around to snack on. Today it's complimentary little bags of Doritos, as well as a plastic pumpkin pail full of mints and matches. Around the holidays last year, the Griffin Club had put out little bowls of a regular's homemade Chex mix. It was fantastic, but that's beside the point. Griffin's is the type of local fixture where the neighborhood brings in their famous Christmas Chex mix to be sampled by all.

There are 2 pool tables, with plenty of room to gather round, as well as weekly karaoke on Friday nights. This a hilarious image somehow. Such a close community, bound-tight through hurricanes and snowstorms, deaths and births, for forty years, comes to have belly laughs at one another singing Kenny Rogers through Bud-goggles every week. In one lonely looking corner, bartender Eddie hesitantly shows me founder Eddie's clearly curated photo collection, wary that damage will come to it somehow.

A giant, stoic Ted Williams, Eddie with his arm around Jim Rice, all autographed, all in pristine condition. In the Seventies, the Griffin Club was hip, a hot spot in all of Maine. Now, with the news of health care reform cranked up on the lone large TV, and dozens of breast cancer posters lining the opposite wall, the pub serves a more sacred human need. The bar is arranged in a rectangle, so everyone can see across and holler at everyone else. T

rusting in fellowship, and cold Guinness, today the Griffin Club is the meeting place, without pretense, where the real-life community conversations happen.