Just yesterday morning, management at Claddagh Irish Pub at Legacy Village in Lyndhurst informed its staff of 35 that the restaurant would be closing its doors on New Year’s Eve after 11 years in operation.

It’s always a painful decision, says Director of Operations for Claddagh Justin O’Driscoll, but doubly so given the time of year.

“Every closing is unfortunate, but we found employment for most of our staff,” he says. “It can be hard to find good staff – and we had good, solid people here – so that made breaking the news a little easier.”

O’Driscoll says that it wasn’t a lack of customers that deep-sixed this particular location, one of 13 Claddagh Irish Pubs scattered around the Midwest, it was the monthly nut.

“Take out January and February, when the weather just crucified us, we had a really good year,” he says. “The biggest issue we have there is what we’re paying. It’s just huge.”

It likely didn’t help matters when Legacy lost the Apple Store to Eton.

Claddagh, by the way, is headquartered in Solon. For that reason, says O’Driscoll, the company is on the hunt for other possible local locations.

As for the large vacant space the closure leaves in its wake, it’s likely only viable to some other large national chain.

This article appears in Dec 24-30, 2014.

For 25 years, Douglas Trattner has worked as a full-time freelance writer, editor and author. His work as co-author on Michael Symon's cookbooks have earned him four New York Times Best-Selling Author honors, while his longstanding role as Scene dining editor has garnered awards of its own.

13 replies on “Claddagh Irish Pub to Close After 11 Years at Legacy Village”

  2. The two beer joints that opened at Legacy and Beachwood across the street had to hurt. And now there’s two more freestanding restaurants at that corner, making it like 20 restaurants there.

    Is anyone doing any market research? That’s ridiculous.

    Not to mention the news places in South Euclid.

    If someone came to the States for the first time and saw all the restaurants, they would realize why we have a glutton problem.

  3. Actually, Cleveland is FAR behind most major cities in terms of restaurants per capita (well. . .except for maybe pizza joints). Cleveland is dwarfed by Columbus in these terms. . .but there are many other reason for that. Claddagh seems to be spinning their story here. They’re closing restaurants EVERYWHERE. Not just in Cleveland. When you see an established chain die as Claddagh is, you typically put the blame on poor management. Mr. O’Driscoll wants to put the blame on Legacy Village but that seems a convenient scapegoat.

  4. Is there going to a liquidation sale? Anyone with information regarding this, please contact me 440 821 8550

  5. Also, they changed their menu and got rid of most of the stuff I liked and their amazing Monte Cristo sandwich went downhill. Pub over at Beachwood Place is a fine substitute.

  7. first, they closed at Crocker Park
    now they’re closing at Legacy Village….

    sounds more like a management problem than a high rent problem….

  8. They seem to have a bad track record wherever they go. Claddaugh’s had a good thing at Easton Village in Columbus when it first opened and ended up closing within a few years of opening. Later Crocker Park and now Legacy Village. Perhaps it has to do more with their reliance on “lifestyle” malls and shopping centers. These were built with a specific demographic in mind (25-34 year olds) that offered everything that they “needed” or wanted to buy in one place, and in many instances an opportunity to live there. These developments have very high rents and were developed on the premise that people would want to shop there versus going to strip malls, shopping malls (which are still struggling), or purchasing on-line.

    One only has to look at the failure of other retail establishments at Legacy Village: Design Expo, Viking Store, Z Galleria, and Joseph-Beth Books.

  9. Gawd awful management.
    Anyone who sat at the bar would be privy to managers screaming like hysterical babies over nothing. Everyone in management made it abundantly clear that they hated the “unit” and the staff.
    I heard that Justin O’Driscoll guy call everyone that worked there, a bunch of ‘lazy c&nts’. NO surprise they ruined the best Pub around.

  10. When I lived in Lyndhurst, and Legacy Village was new, I visited Claddagh a few times, but never found a reason to go back, even 10-years later.

    Nightown, 10-minutes down Cedar Road in Cleveland Hts. is just so much better in a zillion ways, that Claddagh always seemed like a plasticville replica of what a good pub should be.

    But then I never frequented the Cheese Cake Factory either, for the same reason. Authentic, like Corky & Lennys always seemed to top the faux suburban atmosphere presented @ Legacy and the people were always more interesting at the original than at the poor copy.

  12. I once worked for Claddagh I was a Manager when I moved to Cleveland they were in Bankruptcy at the time. What I saw during my time there was upper management did not want to listen or see what they were doing and the decisions they were making it doesnt surprise me that they closed. Those restaurants were huge in square footage also Marketing wasnt very good either.

  13. Claddagh has been mismanaged to death. In 2017, they are doing worse. Fair warning if you work there, get ready for a mass shutdown. The only reason they have stayed afloat is constant cash infusions from Ireland. Also if you work there, be sure to keep your own pay records. The company is notorious for reporting more income on your W-2 than you actually made, sometimes to the tune of over 10,000 dollars.

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