PEORIA, Ill. (WMBD) — Kenny’s Westside Pub is celebrating more than St. Patrick’s Day.
It’s the downtown Peoria bar’s 10th anniversary. Kenny’s opened on St. Patrick’s Day 2013 on Farmington Road then moved to its current location on Jefferson Avenue six years ago.
“We were born on St. Patrick’s Day… We’re an Irish bar on the parade route downtown. So it just makes for a great celebration,” said owner Sean Kenny.
The bar was packed shoulder to shoulder on Friday as hundreds of people listened to live music, drank beer and ate Irish food.
“We opened up this morning with biscuits and gravy, and serving it until its gone. We’re doing a few hundred pounds of corned beef that we’re serving until it gone… We’ve been cooking corned beef for about a week,” said Kenny.
Becky Collins has been celebrating St. Patrick’s Day at Kenny’s for 10 years.
“It’s a great Irish bar, very authentic. Great food. They’ve got great music inside, camaraderie. I hope it keeps thriving. He’ll need a bigger place,” she said.
Kenny said the bar caters to many different groups of people on any given day.
“From our lunch courthouse people, to people on dates for dinner, to third shift workers coming in for food, and obviously everyone that’s coming for drinks and all the people that come for our live music three times a week,” he said.
Kenny said he is looking forward to the next 10 years.
“We just want to keep doing the same thing that we’ve been doing. It’s going great and people seem to love it, so we just want to keep doing that,” he said.
Kenny’s Westside Pub is located at 112 SW Jefferson Avenue. The party goes until 4 a.m.
