Last call: De Vere’s Irish Pub to close for good in Sacramento, Davis next week
“May the road rise up to meet you,” the famous Irish blessing goes. “May the wind be always at your back. May the sun shine warm upon your face, the rains fall soft upon your fields and until we meet again, may God hold you in the palm of His hand.”
de Vere’s, Sacramento’s best-known Irish pub, is closing for good, its operators announced on social media Monday night. Its sister restaurant and bar in downtown Davis will shut down as well.
The surprise closures come just months after both locations reopened following prolonged COVID-19 shutdowns and remodels. The Davis pub at 217 E St. was closed from roughly August 2020 to June; Sacramento’s at 1521 L St. shut down after St. Patrick’s Day in 2020 and didn’t reopen until July, though owners Henry and Simon de Vere White hosted the popular Snug Jr. burger pop-up there for much of the pandemic.
“While the last few months since opening have felt like a homecoming, we haven’t been able to dig ourselves out of the hole that the pandemic created,” the Sacramento pub’s Instagram post read. “When looking ahead to the future, we may not ever get back to where we were pre-pandemic. With the heaviest of hearts we announce the closing of our pub.”
It’s not quite an “Irish goodbye:” both de Vere’s Irish Pubs will remain open until Sunday. The family also owns dark R Street Corridor bar The Snug and low-ABV wine bar Ro Sham Beaux in midtown Sacramento, and is partners in Public House Downtown sports bar.
De Vere’s staff opted to remain open for an additional week rather than shut down immediately, Henry de Vere White said in an interview with The Sacramento Bee. He urged people to enjoy a last pint at de Vere’s and celebrate the joy the bars brought — at least four now-married couples met at de Vere’s, he said, including one whose wedding he officiated — rather than mourn their loss.
“If you were going to bet on a horse and your horse ran like de Vere’s Pub did, what a great bet it would be,” de Vere White said. “We had a great time, people’s lives were changed, money was made, money was lost — whatever, it doesn’t matter. It was a great race.”
The de Vere White brothers opened their Sacramento bar in 2009. It became known as a place to enjoy a glass of whiskey or properly-poured Guinness, where crowds gathered for Premier League soccer matches and Tuesday night trivia over executive chef Wes Nilssen’s Shepherd’s pie.
The Davis establishment has many of the same trappings but a slightly different feel, influenced by its surrounding college town but catering to professors and their families as much as students. It opened in 2011.
De Vere’s was most visible on St. Patrick’s Day; after that, on St. Baldrick’s day. The pubs hosted annual head-shaving parties to raise money for St. Baldrick’s Foundation, a children’s cancer research nonprofit, and ultimately sent more than $3 million to the charity, Henry de Vere White said.
“There’s a lot of good that we’ve done, and we’re proud of what we’ve done,” de Vere White said. “Sacramento has been so good to us. Davis has been so good to us. What a blessing we got to make it 10 years and (12 years).”
