Doherty's Irish Pub & Restaurant is expanding again, this time landing a second Cary location just minutes from downtown at 701 East Chatham Street. The new spot fills the 4,730-square-foot space once occupied by Spirits Pub & Grub, complete with a patio built to seat more than 100 guests.
The lease, announced in August by commercial real estate firm Lee & Associates RDU, was brokered by Jenn Olevitch-Roberson on Doherty's behalf and Charles “Chip” Lanier representing landlord Curtis Westbrooks Properties. According to the Raleigh News & Observer, Doherty's team had been searching for a building near downtown Cary for years before this deal came together, and the two Cary locations will now sit just a 13-minute drive apart from each other.
The site's history adds a bit of poignancy to the announcement. Spirits Pub & Grub had been an East Chatham Street staple known for scratch-made burgers, brunch, and a four-cheese mac and cheese that won Raleigh's SparkCon Mac Down, per the Triangle Food Blog, before the restaurant permanently closed in January. The deal effectively closes the gap that closure left in the corridor, per the same account, while giving Doherty's a foothold in one of downtown Cary's most active dining blocks.
A Corridor on the Rise
Doherty's arrival lands amid a broader surge of activity along East Chatham Street. The lease announcement came the same month as the grand opening of Lloyd's Full Service in a converted 1951 auto repair shop at 107 East Chatham Street — a project Hoodline covered — as well as the debut of K38 Baja Grill at 147 East Chatham Street, according to a report shared in a downtown Cary community Facebook post.
Municipal policy has helped fuel that momentum. Cary's Town Council voted to expand the town's downtown social district to cover major commercial blocks connecting Chatham, Park, and Cedar streets, letting patrons carry alcoholic drinks in recyclable cups as they move between participating businesses, according to the Town of Cary Mayor's Blog. That kind of walkable drinking-and-dining zone, paired with the 2023 opening of Downtown Cary Park, has helped turn the area into a magnet for new restaurant investment as the town has grown from roughly 20,000 residents in 1976 to nearly 187,000 in 2026, per Hoodline's own reporting.
An Irish Pub Legacy Decades in the Making
Doherty's traces its roots to 1997, when founder Michael Doherty sought to bring Irish culture to the Triangle by opening Tir Na nOg in downtown Raleigh, according to the News & Observer. That concept eventually transitioned into Connolly's Irish Pub in Cary, which was renamed Doherty's Irish Pub & Restaurant in 2012, per the same report and Doherty's own account of its history.
The brand has since grown into a locally owned Irish-American restaurant and neighborhood pub with locations across the Triangle, including in Apex, Pittsboro, and Holly Springs, as the News & Observer reports. Doherty's expanded into Chatham County in late 2023 with a two-story pub inside downtown Pittsboro's SoCo development, featuring an outdoor balcony overlooking the historic county courthouse, according to the Chatham Journal. The same brokers behind the new Cary lease, Olevitch-Roberson and Lanier, had previously worked with Doherty's on its Holly Springs location inside the Peterson Station mixed-use development, per Lee & Associates RDU.
What's on the Menu
Doherty's kitchen runs on scratch-made Irish and American comfort food, according to the Chatham Journal, with dishes like Guinness-braised brisket, beer-battered fish and chips, boxty potato crepes, and a traditional Sunday Irish breakfast with rashers and bangers. The News & Observer notes that the chain emphasizes genuine hospitality and a welcoming pub atmosphere across all of its locations.
Growth along Chatham Street isn't limited to restaurants. Upscale housing has followed the dining boom, including Wilson | Blount Development's planned luxury condominium project beside Chatham Walk and the five-story Meridian East Chatham apartment complex, both detailed in earlier Hoodline reporting on the corridor's condo boom. That residential surge, alongside openings like Pastrami Tom's Deli on West Chatham Street, underscores just how much appetite downtown Cary has for new dining options right now.
The lease for the new Doherty's location is officially signed, but no opening date has been announced yet. The News & Observer reports it reached out to Doherty's for comment and plans to update its story once the restaurant responds, leaving details like interior renovations and staffing plans still unresolved for now.
