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To most people, March 17 is St. Patrick's Day — or the feast day of St. Patrick, in the Roman Catholic calendar.
Bar owners, like Dave Morris, give it a different name. "We call it amateurs night," said Morris, owner of Piper Down, an Irish bar at 1492 S. State St. in Salt Lake City.
St. Patrick's Day — the holiday honoring the fifth-century bishop who tried to bring Christianity to Ireland — is "the bar-drinking holiday," Morris said. "Super Bowl, we compete with house parties. Halloween, it's half and half. St. Patrick's Day? You go to an Irish pub, period."
But a lot of the people who go to an Irish pub don't usually go to bars, Morris said, and they're not up on the rules of bar etiquette.
To deal with the onslaught, and to help out the uninitiated, Morris said Piper Down streamlines its menu to just four items: fish and chips, bangers and mash, corned beef and cabbage, and an Irish breakfast. He jokes that he serves four colors of beer: black, red, yellow and green.
That's not green beer, the vile mix of cheap beer and green food coloring that will get you laughed out of any real bar. "We won't color beer," Morris said. Instead, he serves Bud Light in a special green aluminum bottle. The bar went through 160 cases of the green-bottled beer last year, he said.
The black beer, of course, is a Guinness, the traditional Irish stout beer. Red is "Regimental Red," an Irish red brewed especially for Piper Down. And yellow is the usual Miller beer or any similar American lager.
Up the street at The Republican, 917 S. State St., owner Jason Meek said they don't get too fancy for St. Patrick's Day. They don't have to, he said, because the place is small and the regulars fill up the joint before the "amateurs" get a chance.
"We're full really soon, really early," Meek said. By the time the nonregulars get off work and decide to go out for a pint, "we're usually turning people away."
Other Irish bars have their own ways to deal with the onslaught of infrequent bar patrons. At MacCool's Public House — which has outlets at Foothill Village, South Jordan and Layton — they have "St. Practice Day" on the 17th of every month, to acclimate customers to the ways of Irish pub behavior.
For novices who want to have a good time and not have the bartender give them the evil eye, here are some tips:
1. Bring cash • "Don't try to pay with a credit card," Morris said. It slows down the staff.
2. Be decisive • "Know what you want to drink," Morris said. The line behind you isn't getting any shorter.
3. Eat something • "Get some food in your stomach," Morris said. Food absorbs the beer, so you won't get drunk too fast. And it fills you up, so you won't drink as much.
4. Try something new • "Pick a beer that's palatable, and some whiskey," Morris said.
5. Tip well • Think of tipping not only as a reward for services, but as an Irish good-luck charm — a karmic offering that will someday come back to you.
Morris said he doesn't neglect his regular customers, whom he calls his friends and "my bread and butter."
"I tell my regulars I will take care of you every single day of the year, except one," Morris said, adding that he compensates by scheduling a "professionals night" on March 18, the day after St. Patrick's Day.