Doody’s Totoket Inn, a local Irish pub, is easy to overlook, even if what you’re looking for is a local Irish pub, never mind one that’s been here for 90 years. Its location in North Branford, that New Haven-perspective hinterland between 95 and 91, is only 20 minutes away at rush hour, yet it sounds farther away than that. And its name is confusing—opaque, really. Even if you recognize the Irish surname “Doody” and the North Branford region “Totoket,” the “Inn” part could throw you off, including after you arrive and discover there’s no actual lodging.
Of course, by that point, you’re already sitting down and giving the place a shot. That’s what I was doing Tuesday, grabbing the only open bar seat—that dreaded spot right in front of the beer taps, where you wonder if the servers can see you—when the lights were dimmed for the evening, prompting a chorus of whooping from around the room. In one corner, a popcorn machine was suddenly much more seductive, casting a red-orange glow over its mountain valley of popcorn, while, overhead, TVs tuned to local news and pro baseball would’ve given people something to talk about if only they’d needed it.
They didn’t. The guys to my left talked parade logistics, then prayed that the Giants wouldn’t sign Aaron Rodgers, who they think is all washed up. Farther down, a more sympathetic view of aging was aired, as a woman told a friend about her increasingly dependent father. On my right, a man who wasn’t saying much caught the attention of a bartender, Susie. “How’d your day go?” she asked. Tersely, he answered, “It could’ve been better,” before describing a death he’d witnessed while on the job. He asked for a shot of Jameson, which Susie said was on the house. He insisted on paying.
Having come alone, my main conversation partner was Susie. She helped me pick an Irish whiskey, recommending Bushmills. As I wobbled between that ancient distillery’s flagship product and a “Black Bush” variant, she gave me a taste of each. I chose a neat pour of the Black and began to nose and sip, enjoying flavors of green apple, honey and brine followed by notes of fresh bread and caramel as the whiskey opened up. When she slid it over, Susie said the glass was on the house because it was the last of the bottle and wasn’t, at least by her standards, a full pour. I decided to pay for it too.
The service felt easy, and also endearingly eccentric. As I read the menu, Susie plopped down two types of mustard, French’s classic yellow and Golden’s spicy brown. The ketchup came later, when my Beyond burger ($17.95), whose menu-standard wrap I had subbed out, arrived on a hard roll with a side of crinkle-cut fries. It was simple food, but it hit the spot. The lettuce and tomato were fresh and ripe. The avocado was a welcome touch (though I wished it had come mashed), and so was my choice of mustard, the Golden’s. The roll, from Lupi’s in New Haven, was chewy and buoyant—so tasty I didn’t mind that it dwarfed the patty. The fries needed salt, but, luckily, like the mustard, that was self-serve.
Finishing the food and then the whiskey, I ordered something a lot of people will be drinking this week: Guinness, one of 10 beers on tap. It’s never been my favorite, but this week, especially, it was my duty to confirm that Doody’s serves it properly: cold but not frosty, which is conducive to the stout’s famously dense and creamy head. The head here was exactly that, a half-inch of fine bubbles that lifted the experience, even if the beer’s roasted coffee and bittersweet chocolate notes were too faint for me, especially after the whiskey.
At some point Susie’s family appeared, turning a wall of booths trimmed in the requisite dark wood and forest green fabric into a boisterous family dinner. When her infant granddaughter was carried over, a guy a couple seats down spontaneously blurted, “She’s beautiful.” Grandma beamed.
I wager he was a regular. In fact, I think everyone else that night was a regular, a condition that can lead to a culture of exclusivity even (or especially) in seemingly casual drinking establishments. Yet I didn’t smell a whiff of pretension. When Susie asked me to “come back soon now, okay?”, I knew she meant it, just as I did when I said, “I will.”
Written and photographed by Dan Mims.
