Brazen lads head north for new venture

Two Irish-born business partners in Westchester County are expanding their bar and restaurant enterprise into thriving downtown White Plains.
Rory Dolan, whose namesake bar and restaurant in Yonkers is one of the more renowned establishments in the county, and Declan Rainsford recently purchased the 7,000-square-foot building at 177-179 Mamaroneck Ave. that formerly housed Dooley Mac”™s Publick House and an optical shop. The Dooley Mac sign and street facade with shuttered windows are all that remain of the bar, which is being gutted by the new owners to make way for their drinking and dining venture, The Brazen Fox.
“There”™s a place called The Brazen Head in Dublin,” Rory Dolan said by phone from his Yonkers bar last week, explaining the origin of their business name in White Plains. “It”™s not far from where Declan lived. It”™s the oldest pub in Dublin,” dating to 1198.
“Originally, we wanted The Brazen Head as the name,” said Rainsford, standing amid demolition debris and speaking over the noise of a contractor”™s jackhammer. “But there”™s a copyright on the name” ”“ held by an Irish-themed bar in Ohio ”“ “so we couldn”™t use it. We thought ”˜The Brazen Fox”™ was close – and it fits.”
Rainsford, who will manage The Brazen Fox, said it will have two rear party rooms, with seating for 80 persons in an upper room and a 200-person capacity at the lower level. Outdoor seating will be available on an existing rear patio and at a sidewalk cafe on Mamaroneck Avenue.
Offering a day menu of sandwiches, wraps and salads, “We”™re hoping to capture the large lunch business crowd that”™s in the neighborhood and try to get people served quickly,” Rainsford said. Additional dinner items will be offered on an evening menu.
The partners have hired the White Plains firm Norman DiChiara Architects to design the renovated building.
“It”™s not going to be your typical Irish-looking store at all,” Rainsford said. “It will have a little bit more of a European flair to it.”
Renovations are expected to be completed in four to five months, the partners said, and The Brazen Fox could open in October. Rainsford said it will employ 30 to 40 workers.
A native Dubliner, the 35-year-old Rainsford came to the U.S. to study hotel management in New England. He worked for the Marriott Hotel Group and at the Arizona Biltmore Hotel in Phoenix. “But New York was the happening place, so I always wanted to end up in New York,” he said.
Twelve years ago, he met Rory Dolan, a fellow countryman from County Cavan, and the 41-year-old Dolan”™s two partners in the bar and restaurant businesses in Yonkers and New York City. Rainsford joined them as a partner in Rambling House, a Katonah Avenue bar and grill in the Irish and Irish-American community in the Woodlawn section of the Bronx.

He and Dolan are co-partners in the White Plains venture. The property sale was brokered by Houlihan Business Brokers Inc., a Bronxville firm that specializes in the sale of restaurants and food service businesses.
“The revitalization of the downtown White Plains area around Dooley Mac”™s presented a perfect opportunity for Dolan and Rainsford to enter a growing market in a location and space ideally suited to their new restaurant,” said Gerry Houlihan, president of Houlihan Business Brokers, who represented the four partners in Dooley Mac”™s.
Dolan, who immigrated to the U.S. in 1986, also owns Rory Dolan”™s Restaurant, Bar and Caterers, 890 McLean Ave., and Rockin”™ Robins Bar and Night Club, 942 McLean Ave., in Yonkers, and two midtown Manhattan bars, The Snug and Dalton”™s, both on Ninth Avenue.
“All the joys of this business,” Dolan said from his flagship establishment in a voice of wry Irish lament.
“It”™s a good business,” he added.