Award-winning Irish bar The Dead Rabbit is coming to Boston

The Dead Rabbit, a renowned Irish pub founded in New York City, is expanding to Boston. A representative for the team confirmed to Eater that the acclaimed bar plans to open a Boston location in 2025 after completing expansions in Austin, Texas (which just opened this month) and Washington, DC later this year.

The team hasn’t announced a location for the new Boston bar, but confirmed that a lease has been signed in the city and that they’ll have more details to share “in the near future.” (Eater will update this story as more information becomes available.)

This isn’t the first time Dead Rabbit has considered a move to Boston; the team has hinted for years that Boston would be an ideal place for a second location for the cocktail bar due to its deep Irish roots. Co-founder John McGarry, a Belfast native, told Eater Austin in 2023 that launching Dead Rabbit in new cities is about “spreading our love of the Irish pub” while also “challenging the misconceptions surrounding Irish culture.” (In other words, it’s not all about shamrocks and St. Patrick’s Day.)

The cocktail bar’s owners announced major national expansion plans a couple of years ago, but actual implementation has been much slower than expected. A New Orleans branch of Dead Rabbit, which had been in the works since 2019, is no longer happening. An Austin branch of Dead Rabbit just opened on July 1, after originally planning a spring 2023 opening. A Washington, D.C., branch is still pending. Co-founder Sean Muldoon and former beverage director Jillian Vose left the group to open a restaurant and bar called Hazel and Apple in Charleston, South Carolina, which was scheduled to open in 2022, but a series of “unforeseen obstacles” pushed the opening back to late 2024 or early 2025.

Dead Rabbit first made its name in New York City with its now decade-old bar in the Financial District that put contemporary Irish drinking culture front and center. The pub eventually made it to the top of the world’s 50 best bars in 2016. It has also won many other awards over the years, including eight Tales of the Cocktail Spirited Awards. McGarry and his team have also expanded their presence in Manhattan with Irish Exit, a bar in the swanky new Moynihan Train Hall.