Thanks to the installation of new retractable glass screens, Octopus’ Beer Garden in Mount Clemens is celebrating the first-ever extended season for the Beatles-themed riverfront bar.
Well, the beer garden itself is technically on a barge that floats on the Clinton River. There’s a stage for live music built on a pontoon, and even a yellow submarine in the style of Beatles illustrator Heinz Edelmann painted on the side of the bar’s offices.
In the past, the largely outdoor bar was open from around Mother’s Day to Halloween. The new enclosure means it can open from St. Patrick’s Day to New Year’s Eve.
“This is the first year we’ve been able to be open during the colder months,” owner Bob Halaas tells Metro Times. “This past summer we contracted a company called Skyview Detroit, and they came in and put in these beautiful remote-control, magnetic glass screens that roll up and down with the click of a button.”
Halaas and his family acquired the bar in 2019. Before that, it was known as The Captain’s Landing and served food and drinks to guests before they embarked on riverboat tours of the Clinton River. The previous owner offered to include the boat when he sold the bar, but Halaas turned it down.
“I’m a chef,” he says. “I know the restaurant business and the bar business, but I really don’t know the charter boat business, so I declined.” (The boat is now in Chicago, he says, where it hosts architectural tours of the city by river.)
For St. Patrick’s Day on Monday, the bar will open starting at 9 a.m. serving corned beef hash and scrambled eggs until 1 p.m., with corned beef and cabbage, corned beef sandwiches, Irish beef stew, and potato soup available the rest of the day.
Live entertainment includes the Fox and the Fiddler from 1 -3 p.m., Dave Edwards and the Look from 4-7 p.m., and DJ Bad Luck from 7-11 p.m.
Halaas says going forward, he plans to open up the bar back up for the season every year starting on St. Patrick’s Day and make a tradition out of it.
“I don’t have permission this year,” he says, “but I’m working on getting permission to dye the Clinton River emerald green, just like they do in Chicago, for a nice, big thing for people to come out to with spring arriving.”
On Thursday, March 27, the bar will host Bell’s Brewery to celebrate the release of its new Oberon Light, a low-calorie ale.
From St. Patrick’s Day to Mother’s Day, the bar will be open Thursdays through Sundays, with live entertainment every day.
In the warmer season when business picks up, Halaas says there will be live entertainment on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Sundays only.
Beyond that, not much else has changed, Halaas says.
“My vision is honestly as it is, a Beatles-themed beer garden,” he says. “Beatles, baseball, and beer — that’s my three jams, you know, other than my wife and my kids, my family.”
He adds, “The idea behind that design is when you come in here, you’re in an octopus’s beer garden under the sea.”
