The fire that destroyed O’Rourke’s Diner this past August has left many Middletown residents nostalgic for Brian O’Rourke’s Irish-style cooking. Students have had the good fortune of eating his food at WesWings, but now Middletown residents and University students alike can head to the Coppertop Grill on Main Street to experience O’Rourke’s famous cuisine.
According to Howard Tingue, the owner of the Coppertop Grill, the idea to hire O’Rourke was suggested by a dishwasher who had worked at the diner and is now employed by the Coppertop Grill.
“It’s been a great stepping stone for me to get back to the diner,” O’Rourke said. “It’s allowed me to reconnect myself with a lot of my customers. I’m still at WesWings on Satrudays. Some of the students know that I’m there. I just need to build the clientel a little bit more. I would invite any of my friends from Wesleyan to come down and have coffee and breakfast.”
The Grill had not previously been open for breakfast, but O’Rourke’s addition to the staff has made opening on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Sunday mornings both lucrative and enjoyable for Tingue.
“It absolutely increased the popularity,” said Tingue, who opened the Coppertop Grill last year. “The name recognition with O’Rourke is strong in Middletown. Business definitely has improved [and] there has been lots of publicity about it.”
According to the Middletown Press, O’Rourke has said that one of the most enjoyable parts about working on Main Street again has been seeing the familiar faces of his old customers.
“I’ve seen people that I haven’t seen in four months,” O’Rourke told the Middletown Press.
O’Rourke has been working with Clayton Williams, the head chef of the restaurant.
“Breakfast is his thing—he determines the menu,” Williams said.
In fact, the arrangement is working out so well that O’Rourke is considering expanding to the lunch and dinner shifts.
“He’s worked several lunches and hung around for dinner sometimes to get his hands into [it] and see what that’s like,” Tingue said. “We’re considering doing an Irish dinner on Monday nights. He wants to bring in an Irish band and have the typical Guinness and lamb stew.”
This was not possible at O’Rourke’s Diner because it lacked a liquor license. According to Tingue, the Coppertop Grill has a full liquor license.
Some examples of O’Rourke’s Irish specialty items are the “Irish Galloway” and “Irish Embassy.” The “Irish Galloway” is poached eggs over grilled brown bread with smoked imported Norwegian salmon, bacon and hollandaise sauce, and the “Irish Embassy” consists of grilled Irish bacon over brown bread with poached eggs, hollandaise sauce, corn beef, and hash.
For the more adventurous types, there is “O’Rourke’s Breakfast,” which is a complete surprise.
“You never really know what you’re going to get,” Tingue said. “If it’s a table of four, everyone will get something different.”
Tingue encourages students to come and try O’Rourke’s cooking in a different and slightly more college-friendly setting.
“It’s less expensive than the diner was,” Tingue said.
According to the Middletown Press, O’Rourke said that his employment at the Coppertop Grill is merely an interim position before he resurrects his diner, hopefully sometime in mid-summer. Nevertheless, his addition to the cooking staff seems to be working out well for everyone.
“It’s fun working with him because he’s just completely nuts about food and so am I,” Tingue said.
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