I moved to Little Neck from Flushing on July 1, 2007 and had long heard of Patrick’s Pub on Northern Boulevard off Little Neck Parkway even before I got there, as I had heard that it was a gathering spot for New York Mets and Jets fans and players (how much of that was true, I don’t know). It was opened by Frank Mockler in 1966 after his recipe for Irish coffee was a hit at the 1964-65 World’s Fair. In 2004, the 76-year-old Mockler and co-owner brother Patrick Mockler sold the bar to a group of investors. The building in which the bar was located was knocked down with its neighbors and a mini-mall was built on the site. Frank Mockler died in 2020 at age 92.
By the time I arrived in 2007, the Scobee Diner directly across Northern Boulevard from Patrick’s Pub was the unofficial capital of Little Neck; the diner first opened in 1965 and in the 1970s opened a new building. In my early Little Neck years, the diner was an unofficial headquarters for me as I would have a meal once a week while watching the traffic go by, and brought in out-of-neighborhood guests. The diner closed in November 2010; the building remained there for several years, then an empty lot for several more. Finally a Bean & Bean coffee franchise with an office on the second floor opened in a new building that finally went up on the site.
I ducked into a ramp to an underground parking lot on Browvale Lane off Northern a couple of weeks ago and lo and behold there was a ghost sign for Patrick’s Pub parking. With the pub gone, its building gone, and Frank Mockler gone, this sign is Patrick’s Pub’s only trace.
Check out the ForgottenBook, take a look at the gift shop, and as always, “comment…as you see fit.”
6/15/20