Peter McManus Cafe

Peter McManus Cafe is a historic Irish-American pub at 152 Seventh Avenue, on the northwest corner of West 19th Street in Chelsea, Manhattan, New York City, USA. Established at its present location in 1936, it is regarded as New York City’s oldest continuously family-operated bar, although the McManus family’s involvement in the city’s pub trade dates back to 1911. Founder Peter McManus, an Irish immigrant from County Longford, originally opened a waterfront bar at West 46th Street and Eleventh Avenue, serving longshoremen and other workers from the nearby Hudson River docks. The business survived Prohibition by operating as a general goods store before moving to Chelsea following the repeal of the restrictions on alcohol. Four generations of the McManus family have operated the establishment, including Peter’s son James J. McManus, who ran the business for many years before his death in 2001. His grandson Justin McManus subsequently took over the family business and continues to operate it. The pub has retained much of its original interior, including a long carved mahogany bar, decorative wood panelling, a pressed-tin ceiling, terrazzo flooring, stained-glass cabinets and two old-fashioned wooden telephone booths. One of the stained-glass panels behind the bar still contains a bullet hole attributed to an attempted robbery during the 1970s. A separate dining room occupies the rear of the establishment, while the main bar has remained largely unchanged despite the extensive redevelopment of Chelsea. The restaurant is also known for its traditional American and Irish pub food, particularly its burgers, which won Time Out New York’s Battle of the Burger competition in both 2016 and 2018.

Peter McManus Cafe has appeared in Highlander (1986), Seinfeld (1989–1998), Keeping the Faith (2000), The Other Guys (2010), Broad City (2014–2019) and Succession (2018–2023). The original bar and its Seventh Avenue entrance feature prominently in Highlander, while Keeping the Faith uses the interior for a priest’s conversation with a bartender. The pub also appears during an argument between the two detectives in The Other Guys, in a fantasy sequence in Broad City and during a family gathering in Succession. Seinfeld uses the establishment’s exterior for scenes set in a Manhattan restaurant.

In Highlander (1986), directed by Russell Mulcahy, Peter McManus Cafe appears when Connor MacLeod (Christopher Lambert) follows police forensic specialist Brenda Wyatt (Roxanne Hart) to the bar after their encounter at Madison Square Garden. Brenda has been investigating the mysterious decapitation of an unidentified man in the arena’s underground parking garage, where MacLeod was discovered carrying an unusual sword. She sits alone at the wooden bar, drinking while attempting to make sense of the evidence. The bartender, played by Anthony Fusco, recognises her as a regular customer and pours her usual drink. Connor enters shortly afterwards and orders a double Glenmorangie whisky on the rocks, taking a seat nearby.

MacLeod attempts to start a conversation by asking Brenda whether she frequently visits Madison Square Garden. She immediately becomes suspicious and demands to know whether he has been following her. Although he offers to walk her home, Brenda refuses, leaves money on the counter and walks out. MacLeod follows her onto Seventh Avenue, where the pub’s corner entrance and surrounding storefronts are visible as he crosses the street. The scene was filmed both inside and outside the real establishment, preserving its wooden bar, mirrors and traditional interior. It is one of the earliest meetings between Connor and Brenda, whose investigation gradually reveals the existence of the immortals and the centuries-old conflict between MacLeod and the Kurgan.

In Seinfeld (1989–1998), Peter McManus Cafe appears in the fourth-season finale, The Pilot (1993), which originally aired as a two-part episode on 20 May 1993. The restaurant’s Seventh Avenue exterior establishes the meeting place where Elaine Benes (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) agrees to speak with NBC president Russell Dalrymple (Bob Balaban), who has become infatuated with her following an earlier encounter. Russell attempts to persuade Elaine to reconsider their relationship, but she explains that she has little interest in a man whose life revolves around network television. She casually suggests that she might feel differently if he were involved in an organisation such as Greenpeace. Russell takes the remark seriously and subsequently joins the environmental organisation in an attempt to impress her.

The same fictional restaurant appears again when Jerry Seinfeld meets actress Sandi Robbins (Elena Wohl), who has been cast to portray a fictionalised version of Elaine in the television pilot Jerry. Sandi wants to understand the real Elaine’s personality and questions Jerry about her habits, interests and previous relationship with him. Their conversation becomes increasingly personal, and the two eventually kiss. Although Peter McManus Cafe provides the exterior establishing footage for these meetings, the restaurant-table scenes were filmed on a studio set in Los Angeles, where most of Seinfeld was produced. The real Chelsea pub was therefore used to represent the exterior of the restaurant rather than the interior where the actors performed.

In Keeping the Faith (2000), directed by Edward Norton, Peter McManus Cafe plays an important part in the film’s framing narrative. Norton portrays Father Brian Finn, a young Catholic priest whose friendship with Rabbi Jacob Schram (Ben Stiller) becomes complicated when both men fall in love with their childhood friend Anna Reilly (Jenna Elfman). The film opens with Brian wandering through Manhattan while visibly intoxicated and troubled by his romantic feelings for Anna. After leaving another bar, the Blarney Stone on Eighth Avenue, he makes his way to Peter McManus Cafe, where he approaches the bartender and begins recounting the events that have brought him to this point.

The scene takes place inside the actual pub, with Brian seated at the long wooden bar. Initially reluctant to listen to another customer’s personal problems, the bartender gradually becomes the audience for Brian’s account of his friendship with Jake and Anna. The film then moves into an extended flashback, following the three characters from their childhood in New York through the complicated circumstances of their adult relationships. The conversation at Peter McManus provides the starting point for this narrative, with Brian’s increasingly uncomfortable situation explaining why a priest has ended up drinking and confiding in a stranger. The film later returns to the bartender and Brian’s account, completing the framing device established at the beginning.

In The Other Guys (2010), directed by Adam McKay, Peter McManus Cafe appears during a conversation between New York police detectives Allen Gamble (Will Ferrell) and Terry Hoitz (Mark Wahlberg). The two have been assigned to work together despite their completely different personalities. Terry is an aggressive, ambitious detective who resents being confined to routine police work, while Allen is a cautious forensic accountant who prefers paperwork to dangerous assignments. Their contrasting approaches frequently lead to arguments, including a particularly absurd exchange while sitting together inside the Chelsea bar.

During the conversation, Terry compares himself to a lion and Allen to a tuna, assuming that the lion would naturally be the more dangerous animal. Allen challenges the comparison by imagining a large tuna attacking a lion in the ocean, eventually inventing an elaborate scenario involving an entire school of fish. What begins as a complaint about their unequal abilities develops into an increasingly ridiculous argument about which animal would survive the confrontation. The sequence was filmed inside Peter McManus Cafe, with Ferrell and Wahlberg seated in the traditional pub interior. The wooden furnishings and bar surroundings remain visible throughout the exchange, placing the two mismatched detectives in an ordinary New York drinking establishment rather than one of the police stations or corporate offices used elsewhere in the film.

In Broad City (2014–2019), Peter McManus Cafe appears in the fifth-season episode Shenanigans (2019), first broadcast on 7 March 2019. The episode opens with Abbi Abrams (Abbi Jacobson) and Ilana Wexler (Ilana Glazer) working behind the bar during what initially appears to be an enthusiastic and increasingly wild night of bartending. The two women perform elaborate tricks while preparing drinks, throwing glasses and bottles around as a cheering crowd encourages their increasingly exaggerated performance. Peter McManus Cafe provides the bar setting for this opening sequence.

The scene is soon revealed to be a fantasy. In reality, Abbi and Ilana are serving drinks at a comparatively dull retirement party through Abbi’s catering job. Their imagined performance reflects the much more exciting evening they would prefer to be having, and their behaviour at the actual party soon gets out of hand. Abbi injures her ankle during the festivities, creating further problems in her relationship with Dr Lesley Marnell (Clea DuVall), who begins questioning her maturity. The opening sequence makes use of the traditional Peter McManus bar before the episode returns to the considerably less glamorous reality of their catering work.

In Succession (2018–2023), Peter McManus Cafe appears in the fourth-season episode Rehearsal (2023), directed by Becky Martin. The episode follows Kendall Roy (Jeremy Strong), Shiv Roy (Sarah Snook), Roman Roy (Kieran Culkin) and their older half-brother Connor Roy (Alan Ruck) on the evening of Connor’s wedding rehearsal. After an uncomfortable dinner at The Grill in the Seagram Building, the siblings leave the restaurant and continue their evening at Peter McManus Cafe in Chelsea. The pub’s traditional wooden interior provides the setting for a gathering that begins as a relatively ordinary night of drinking but gradually becomes entangled in the family’s ongoing struggle over the future of Waystar Royco.

While the siblings are at the bar, Kendall receives a telephone call from Lukas Matsson (Alexander Skarsgård), the technology billionaire attempting to acquire the family company. Matsson warns him that the proposed sale could collapse if the Roy siblings continue demanding more money. Rather than immediately sharing the information with the others, Kendall begins considering how the warning might serve his own interests in the negotiations. The conversation at the bar also exposes growing disagreements between the siblings over their father Logan Roy (Brian Cox), particularly when Kendall and Shiv discover that Roman has continued communicating with him.

The four eventually leave Peter McManus Cafe after Connor suggests going to a karaoke bar, having become increasingly distressed about his approaching wedding and his fiancée Willa’s uncertainty. They continue their evening at Maru Karaoke Lounge in Koreatown, where Logan later arrives and attempts to reconcile with his children. The scenes at Peter McManus were filmed inside the actual Chelsea pub, with its long wooden bar, dark panelling and traditional furnishings visible around the Roy siblings. Unlike many of the expensive restaurants, private clubs and luxury residences featured throughout Succession, the setting is an ordinary neighbourhood bar where the siblings attempt, unsuccessfully, to spend an evening together without becoming involved in another family confrontation.

Seinfeld (1989–1998)

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