UPDATE: Amrheins Reopens This Weekend

UPDATE, 2/12/2016, 4:30 p.m.:

The newly renovated Amrheins reopens February 13 at 5 p.m. / Photo provided

The historic restaurant isn’t going anywhere: It reopens Saturday, February 13 at 5 p.m.

General manager Mike Sheridan answered the phone at Amrheins this afternoon. “It’s so sexy in here now,” he says, sharing photos of a brand new white marble bar top.

Along with new, white mosaic tile flooring; red leather bar stools, and new chandeliers in the more formal dining room, original details like exposed brick and the hand-carved bar pop, he says. Designer Elizabeth Cronin of Milton designed the new interior. “The character is the same, she just brought it all together.”

The construction stayed pretty much on schedule, though the team originally wanted to reopen Amrheins tonight, Sheridan says. “It wasn’t a structural renovation, it was just a fantastic facelift.” With restaurants like Loco Taqueria + Oyster Bar, Coppersmith, Worden Hall, and the Maiden recently opening in South Boston, “this is what people are looking for,” he says.

Chef Matt Lancaster’s menu maintains comfort food classics like Shepard’s pie, Yankee pot roast, and turkey tips risotto. “We’re still catering to the same clientele, we just have a fresh new dining room and bar to do it in,” Sheridan says.

Owner Stephen Mulrey was unavailable today to discuss what other changes might be in store for Amrheins, given he is slated to appear before the Boston Licensing Board next week.

PREVIOUSLY:

Amrheins. / Photo via amrheinsboston.com

Amrhein’s has been a fixture on Broadway for more than 100 years, playing host to political junkies, locals, and tourists alike at its hand-carved bar and former funeral parlor dining room.

But it’s been closed for about a month, apparently for renovations. Next week, owner Stephen Mulrey goes before the Boston Licensing Board to bring the establishment under a different corporation, Mul’s Pub. State filings show Mul’s Pub was first incorporated in 2005. Is an identity change in the works for the historic spot?

https://www.instagram.com/p/BAibOnktZfU/?taken-by=southiespots

Instagrammer @Southiespots shared a sign from the place three weeks ago, and says Amrheins is slated to reopen February 12. But the restaurant’s website and social media don’t corroborate the news. Called this morning, its phone line doesn’t connect, either.

Mulrey also owns the nearby Mul’s Diner, a business started by his father, Joe Mulrey, about 70 years ago. Stephen Mulrey wasn’t available at Mul’s Diner this morning, and the employee who answered the phone said she doesn’t know what’s going on across the street. Joe Mulrey purchased Amrheins in the 1950s, though the restaurant has been in operation since 1890. It boasts the oldest hand-carved bar in America, as well as Boston’s first draft beer pump.

In 2005, Amrheins closed for repairs, and a lack of information then led to rumors swirling that the prime real estate would be sold to condo developers eyeing a soon-to-blossom Southie, the Boston Globe reported. But Stephen Mulrey quashed them: “I would never sell. This is what I’ve done my whole life. After the renovations, I’ll cater to the same clientele,” he told the Globe.

Boston has reached out to Stephen Mulrey and will update with any information about the future of Amrheins, and whether Mul’s Pub means anything new for the Southie fixture’s identity.

Amrheins, 80 W. Broadway, South Boston; amrheinsboston.com.