Soon-to-open Quincy restaurant promises to be downtown's new 'five-star dive bar'

QUINCY − It would never be mistaken for Tully's, but restaurateur Kerri Lynch Delaney says she hopes to keep the same community feel, casual atmosphere and come-as-you-are attitude when she opens the new Kilroy's on the Square inside the bar's former home next month.

"Quincy needs more places to just hang out in," Delaney said. "There needs to be an in-between. In between dinner at 16C or Alba, but before you go home, you can have a drink with us. We want to capture that. It's going to be a really comfortable place to go."

Delaney, who owns the 16C restaurant, also on Cottage Avenue, plans to open Kilroy's on the Square in May. She calls it "the five-star dive bar," and said Kilroy's will serve cocktails, beer and wine as well as casual fare like street corn fries and onion strings. The menu's signature items will be its sandwiches, including the turkey roll-up, hot roast beef, meatloaf, Italian sub and more.

A culinary resurgence: 6 of the best Quincy Center meals, drinks and desserts

Let's Eat, Ledgerland: South Shore café's scones, sandwiches bring crowds from miles around

"We're talking really good sandwiches, and it's all focused around Quincy," Delaney said.

Each sandwich will be named after something Quincy related, and the restaurant itself is a nod to the city's shipbuilding history. Archived photos from Quincy Shipyard's heyday have been blown up and used as wall décor in the new space, which is filled with small nods to the time. The brackets holding up a waist-high bar look like the signature Kilroy cartoon character, and the purse hooks were modeled after the crane that was once synonymous with the area.

Kilroy's on the Square will replace Tully's, a downtown institution that closed last year. Tully's opened in 1945 and held a long reign as one of Quincy's most beloved dive bars and one of the few places 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 look to grab a drink on the way home.

Delaney, who opened 16C in 2016, said she formed a close relationship with owner Mark Tully when they were neighboring business owners. Tully's closed at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, reopened in June 2021 and shut down for good last year.

"If you walked by here at 11 a.m. it would be full of people just having a ball. The music would be going," Delaney said. "Tully's was a dive bar and our plan was to keep it that way, but more high end. ... We just gave ourselves that five-star title. We haven't earned it yet. But we will."

Municipal broadband in Quincy? It's coming to 2 neighborhoods soon

More: Developer unveils long-awaited plans for 2-story restaurant, housing in downtown Quincy

Kilroy's shiny new floors, pristine paint and exposed brick don't scream "dive bar," but Delaney said it's meant to be a casual place for watching a game and drinking beer all the same.

"Quincy still has blue-collar, Quincy people and they still like having an old-school bar," she said. "It's not a dive bar look per se, but come hang and have a beer."

The new restaurant is named after the recently established courtyard it's on in downtown Quincy. The city named the square – accessible from the city parking garage, The Fours restaurant and Cottage Avenue – Kilroy Square to connect Quincy Center's recent redevelopment with its storied industrial past.

The catchphrase "Kilroy Was Here" originated at the Fore River shipyard in the early 1940s, during World War II, when inspector James Kilroy, of Halifax, wrote it on ships and equipment he had inspected. At its busiest during the war, more than 50,000 people worked at the shipyard.

American troops in Europe scrawled "Kilroy Was Here" on walls, tanks, ships and anything that would stand still as a show of pride and 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 Was Here" has endured in both the popular and military culture and has even showed up more recently on walls in Iraq and Afghanistan.

'We have to be prepared': Braintree police use empty school for active shooter training

'Shocked, grateful': Widow of Cohasset officer recalls help after husband's heart attack

Reach Mary Whitfill at mwhitfill@patriotledger.com.

Thanks to our subscribers, who help make this coverage possible. If you are not a subscriber, please consider supporting quality local journalism with a Patriot Ledger subscription. Here is our latest offer.

This article originally appeared on The Patriot Ledger: New Quincy restaurant replacing Tully's bar opening soon