His Irish pubs — James E. McNellie’s Public House — are tributes to the pubs he visited in Ireland. Built in old buildings in two up-and-coming urban districts, Tulsa’s Blue Dome and Oklahoma City’s MidTown, the pubs look as if they were established long before Nelson was born.
Nelson’s success can be traced to a respite he took from miserable experiences working for corporate America and a big law firm while in college.
"I did an exchange program in Ireland and I thought the bars in Tulsa were inadequate when it came to good pubs,” Nelson said. "I figured I’d give it a shot and if it didn’t work out I’d go back into law school. But really, that just involved way too much reading for me.”
Nelson spent three years preparing to open his first pub in Tulsa — and all along, he jokes, he was called an idiot for making the attempt. He was 25 when the first McNellie’s opened. Both pubs are packed day and night these days, and his El Guapo Mexican restaurant is earning good reviews.
Both pubs are decorated with furniture bought from Ireland, and patrons have personalized beer mugs lined up behind the bar taps featuring hundreds of varieties of brew.
"I love beer,” Nelson said. "One of my parents’ best friends said, ‘You’re saving thousands of dollars because you don’t have to travel to Germany to enjoy great beer anymore.’”
Nelson recently visited with The Oklahoman about his love of Ireland, its pubs and beer, and his future ambitions.
Q: Are you Irish? If so, how Irish are you?A: Not very. As a Notre Dame grad, you’re kind of de facto Irish. The Irish side of my family is Margaret Quigley. She sailed from Derry right before the famines in the 1840s. She’s my great, great, great, grandmother.
Q: Does Oklahoma have much of an Irish community?A: Some. More than you would think. It’s not very big, but it’s pretty tight knit, especially with the Catholic societies. They say there are 45 million Americans that claim Irish heritage so there’s a fair amount of us around.
Q: You’ve said your inspirations for McNellie’s go back to your trips to Ireland. What is it you saw that captured your imagination?A: It’s the way a good pub functions. It’s a meeting place for the community. It’s where grandparents are there with kids and grandkids. It’s a place where families gather after Mass. That just fascinated me. Here in Oklahoma, bars have a stigma. The pubs in Ireland are a real gathering place, not just about drinking.
Q: You were pursuing a career in law and you worked for a big company while in college, but you say you hated both gigs. Are you happier being your own boss?A: I grew up around a family-owned business — I guess I was predisposed to this. I don’t take direction very well, so I’m better off being my own boss. I get to wake up every day and be creative.
Q: How many of your beers have you tried?A: All of them. Someone has to do it and make sure they’re OK.
Q: What’s your favorite?A: Guinness. It’s my de facto favorite.
Q: Have you returned to Ireland since opening your first restaurant?A: Yeah, I was just there a couple months ago. I’ve been back three times. This February we’re going to take a McNellie’s pub crawl.
Q: At age 30 you already own three restaurants and two bars. What’s next?A: I don’t know. We have more things planned. For me, it’s about building things that add to the conversation. I want to build things we don’t have in Oklahoma yet. I want to do something that improves communities. We’ve looked at doing a hotel, a bowling alley, everything is on the board.
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I've been to the Midtown location. They poured a good Guinness, and the fish and chips were pretty good. I was surprised how busy it was for a mid afternoon.
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Personally speaking
→Position: Owner of James E. McNellie’s Public House in Oklahoma City and Tulsa, El Guapo in Tulsa.
→Age: 30.
→Education: B.A. English, Notre Dame.
→Family: Wife, Megan, son Jed, 3, daughter Claire, 1.
→Hometown: Tulsa.
→Reading: "Ambitious Brew: The Story of American Beer” by Maureen Ogle and "Drink: A Cultural History of Alcohol” by Iain Gately.
→Listening: The Black Keys.
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