Kilroy's opens with nod to shipyard history in the name, on the walls and menu

QUINCY − Kilroy's on the Square is a mix of old and new. Riding a new wave of restaurants and residential development in the city's downtown, the sports bar on Cottage Avenue pays homage to the city's history and local character.

It starts with the name. The catchphrase "Kilroy was here" originated at the Fore River shipyard in the early 1940s when inspector James Kilroy, of Halifax, wrote it on ships and equipment he had inspected. At its busiest during World War II, the shipyard employed more than 50,000 people.

U.S. troops in Europe scrawled "Kilroy Was Here" on walls, tanks, ships and anything that would stand still to show that they had been there first. At some point, the cartoon of a long-nosed man with big eyes peering over a wall became linked to the saying.

Kilroy's on the Square's nickname, "A Five-Star Dive Bar," refers to its predecessor, Tully's Café, a downtown institution that closed last year. Tully's opened in 1945 and became one of Quincy's most beloved dive bars and a place you could grab a beer at 8 a.m. The early serving time was another shipyard holdover. Nightshift workers would get off work in the morning and stop to grab a drink on the way home. (Sorry to be a buzzkill − but Kilroy's opens at 11:30 a.m.)

An ownership team with deep roots in the city

The restaurant's ownership team consists of Quincy native Kerri Delaney; her husband, Mike Delaney, a longtime resident and officer on the city's police force; Quincy resident Jeff Hannon and his Quincy-born wife, Deirdre Hannon; and Quincy firefighter Paul Daley, who also grew up in the city.

Kerri Delaney graduated from North Quincy High in 1996. She said she didn't love school, preferring hands-on experience to book learning. Luckily, a high school work-study program at O’Brien’s bakery in Wollaston, which closed in 2008, introduced her to culinary arts. At 11:30 a.m., she’d swap paper and pencil for rolling pin and pastry bag. At 3:30 p.m., she’d punch in for her after-school shift.

“I loved it,” Delaney said. “It’s why I got into baking.”

After attending the Cambridge School of Culinary Arts, Delaney opened Babycakes on Beale Street in 2007, which she ran with the help of her husband until 2016.

"Simple but delicious": A sports bar with lots of local character

Delaney described the food at Kilroy's as “simple but delicious.” She said Kilroy’s is a place to “sit down, have a sandwich and some beer as you enjoy the game.”

With most of the sandwiches and cocktails named after Quincy-born military generals or ships built at the shipyard, Kilroy’s menu is as steeped in local history as the restaurant’s name and décor.

For example, the Salem, a grilled chicken sandwich with bacon, lettuce, tomato, American cheese and chipotle mayo, is named for the USS Salem, which was built in Quincy and launched in the spring of 1947. It now holds the United States Naval Shipbuilding Museum at the former Fore River Shipyard.

Delaney said her partners Jeff Hannon and Paul Daley brought their interest and knowledge of Quincy history to bear on the restaurant’s design.

On two walls, archival photographs blown up to enormous proportions display scenes from the Fore River shipyard. In the image on the left wall, a boy in a bathing suit swings out over the water on a rope suspended from the bridge. A ship under construction surrounded with scaffolding looms in the background.

On the right-hand wall, a large stream of workers file out of what look like factories and warehouses for a shift change.

A new restaurant and bar for the new downtown

Delaney said Kilroy Square and Cottage Avenue have come a long way since April 2016, when Delaney opened 16C, the restaurant known for its sheet pan pizza two doors down from Kilroy’s on the Square.

At that point, the neighborhood was largely a construction site. As projects such as One Chestnut Place and the Hancock Garage went up, Delaney said the area had little available parking and wasn't exactly friendly to nightlife and the restaurant scene.

A couple of months after the garage opened, the pandemic hit. Initially, 16C survived solely on takeout. That summer, Delaney said the city would shut down Cottage Avenue at 3 p.m. so they could have outdoor seating.

Now Delaney's endurance through the initial hard times is paying off. She said improvements in Quincy's downtown have benefited businesses like hers.

“(Mayor Thomas) Koch has done an awesome job,” she said.  “Growing up here, there wasn’t a ton of stuff to do downtown.”

She said people new to Quincy are now out mingling with longtime residents, with the square and garage lit up at night.

A place to celebrate championships, commiserate over defeats

Delaney said the restaurant's layout was designed with sports fans in mind. Several flat-screen televisions tuned to ESPN hang on the wall behind the bar.

From an upstairs loft, a row of seats along a counter looks out over the front end of the restaurant toward a massive 110-inch screen with four panels capable of showing four different sporting events simultaneously.

Delaney speculated that these seats would be prime real estate for next year’s Super Bowl. In recent months, she said Boston’s sports teams haven’t given her the boost she hoped for.

“The Bruins screwed us,” she said, referring to their loss in the first round of the playoffs after breaking the NHL record for most wins in a regular season. “The Celtics did us a solid until they stopped doing us a solid.”

While Boston’s sports teams haven’t given Kilroy’s on the Square a championship boost, Quincy’s New England Free Jacks delivered its first national rugby title July 8. Delaney said the team and several fans stopped by July 15 during a celebratory, citywide tour of Quincy's drinking establishments.

“It was a full-fledged bar crawl,” Delaney said.

• Location: 24 Cottage Ave., Quincy.

• Hours: 11:30 a.m. to 1 a.m. every day.

• Contact: 617-302-2307.

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Reach Peter Blandino at pblandino@patriotledger.com.

This article originally appeared on The Patriot Ledger: Kilroy's on the Square: Sandwiches and sports in Quincy