February 17, 2011
By Staff Reporter
Yet that is exactly what My Wild Irish Rose restaurant promises.
One such farmer, Tom Molloy, found himself in Wharton, thousands of miles from his home in County Offaly, when girlfriend Jane Cagney took a job in Calvin Klein’s cosmetics packaging department almost three years ago.
With the move came the chance to take over some farmland in nearby Fredon. Molloy, who has an extensive farming and irrigation background that took him as far as Saudi Arabia after leaving Ireland, decided to do what he knew best.
After “reclaiming” the land, Molloy and Cagney, who is from County Cork, brought in two cows to keep the grass from overgrowing on the 12-acre property.
While all this was going on, Molloy and Cagney were also in the process of buying a pub and restaurant in Wharton. My Wild Irish Rose is your typical neighborhood local, serving an extensive menu with Irish standards – burgers, chops, soups and the like. Locals fill the bar all hours of the day, discussing the new Kohls going up down the road or the upcoming holidays.
And while My Wild Irish Rose pulls a nice pint of Guinness, the real treat is the menu. Remember those cows that were keeping the grass down on Molloy’s farm?
“How it’s done”
It only took a year or so for Molloy and Cagney to notice their restaurant’s beef bills starting to climb. In true farming form, it wasn’t long before Molloy realized he had the answer munching away in his backyard – cash cows, if you will.
Molloy began buying black angus calves and raising them to be served in his restaurant. After seeking out Green Village Packing Co., a USDA-approved slaughterhouse in Madison, N.J., he set to work with his chef, Nina Brynner, on developing a menu featuring his locally-raised beef.
The idea was something Molloy said he stumbled across rather than planned, though the idea of cutting out the middleman out was pure logic.
“It’s how it’s done in Ireland,” he said. “Some people just don’t know where their meat comes from.”
That strikes a nerve with many concerned meat-eaters, who might prefer that cattle that are grass-fed, leading fairly normal lives, for such animals, up until the time they are slaughtered.
Molloy said it wasn’t intentional, having ended up with what might be the only restaurant in the New York metro area to raise its own beef cattle. For all of Manhattan’s trendy bo