The last time you took a shot at a bar, do you remember what was going through your mind? Besides the excitement or disgust at the selected liquor, what were you thinking about? Gratitude towards the person who bought you the shot. Fear that this shot is going to put you over the edge. Nerves since you know there’s only one song in front of yours before you have to go up and sing Mariah Carey karaoke.
During that swift motion to lift your chin and turn your face towards the sky, do you ever get a glimpse of the ceiling? No? Well, why would you. Unless you’re at O’Sullivan’s Italian Pub in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Then you’ll probably do a double take and once you swallow that Fireball, you look back up because you think you just saw a slew of bras hanging from the ceiling. Yep. Oh, look there’s some more. Hey another bunch over above the bar. More in the corner. Hmph.
You can’t look up at O’s and NOT see a bunch of bras
I’ll let your minds wander from there, while also grasping how an Italian Pub got the name O’Sullivan’s.
The green awning which simply reads “O’s” erases any line between Italians and Irish. It’s a common color included in both nation’s flags, and represents two a letter that’s a great leadoff to Irish surnames as well as a classic Italian closer. O’Connor. Valentino. O’Toole. Prosciutto. Quite frankly, O’Sullivan’s combines the best of both worlds: fantastic Italian pub-style pizza and an Irish corner-pub vibe.
The pizza came out without warning and without charge. During the evening rush, I guess they just start cranking out a pizza-or-two per-hour to feed the hungry drinkers who come by. Talk about a difference-maker. Especially for a pair like Shan and I who were on a mini pub-crawl ahead of the Bob Seger show at the Allen County War Memorial Coliseum. We had BBQ at a place called Shigs in Pit early in the afternoon, so seeing of cheesy, thin-crust pizza cut, steaming in the corner was like the sight of gold to a river-panning prospector. It was good too. Plenty of cheese, melted perfectly and a sweet sauce to savor over the cracker-thin-crust.
Notice the empty pizza pan
It was a Tuesday night so I don’t think anyone was performing at O’s, but the place sure looks like it could host one hell of a teenage alt band from Muncie. They have an entire second room that could hold about 100 people shoulder to shoulder as I envision them moshing back and forth to the sounds of a local Dropkick Murphy’s cover band. The scuffed up black and white checker floor screams punk rock, and to be honest, so did a lot of the bar itself. That also might explain where most of the bras came from.
Then you take a closer look at the walls and see the photos of what I assume are some of the toughest rugby teams in the greater Fort Wayne metro area. The rugby team is my #2 suspect in explaining where the bras came from. Every rugby team has to have a home bar where they display their trophies of conquest, whether cheap plastic or made of satin.
Those rugby boys
O’s is like a double agent, or hell, even a triple or quadruple agent.
It had locals sunkenly seated by the taps. A group of joggers who came in all neon’d up, likely for a post-run beer. There were guys with piercings, beards, and tattoos. Ladies who looked like they were on the rugby team. Ladies who looked like your mom. A wall full of polaroid’s posted on bulletin boards featuring fun pub-fam regulars and photos of the low-key stars who’ve played the stage.
O’s is a hipster dive. O’s is a pizza joint. O’s is a live-local-music joint. O’s is a neighborhood dive. O’s, in one word: Outstanding.
Jake Berent 
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