(Long Island, NY) Long Island residents celebrated Irish Day in Rockville Centre with the 20th Rockville Center St. Patrick’s Parade. The event took place on Saturday March 19, 2016.
With much anticipation the Parade route began on the corner of Long Beach Road and Maple Avenue. Marchers headed west on Maple until the street ended; the parade then took a sharp right turn on North Park Ave, a quick sharp left onto College Place, continuing onto Quealy Place where paraders passed Village Hall and the St. Agnes Cathedral. Paraders continued on to the end of Quealy and made a left onto North Village Avenue and a right onto Washington Street coming to an end at Parking Field 2.
Patron Jon Arneth celebrates with Cognac Wellerlane.
The Rockville Centre St. Patrick’s Parade is proudly known as the Parade that Cares and Shares—what a brilliant decision by those founders back in 1997 to build in a way to give back. Rockville Centre’s is the only St. Patrick’s Parade that raises money and promotes three different charities each year. In the Parade’s previous 19 years organizers raised $933,000 for 58 individual charities. They are very close to that 1 million dollar raised mark, and with continued support they may very well reach their goal of surpassing a million dollars.
This year they add three more charities to the roster. The organization takes the process in choosing each charity very seriously and is overjoyed by the 2016 Sponsor Charities.
Rob Verderosa with Cognac.
The Irish Charity is the Ballinasloe Eagles Special Olympics Club—from Galway Ireland. This is an organization that is dedicated to helping special athletes train and compete at a high levels in horseback riding, golf, and swimming. Their athletes face many challenges in life but the chance to participate in sports brings them many social opportunities for inclusion and the enhancement of their self esteem. They may be 5000+ miles away, but because of this partnership everyone knows who they are and, perhaps equally important, they know who Rockville Centre is.
The Parade’s National Charity is the Children’s Tumor Foundation. The Children’s Tumor Foundation is an organization dedicated to finding effective treatments for the millions of people worldwide living with neurofibromatosis (NF). NF causes tumors to grow on nerves throughout the body resulting in many difficult and painful medical conditions. One of the goals of CTF is to expand public awareness of NF to promote earlier and accurate diagnoses by the medical community, increase the non-affected population’s understanding of the challenges facing people with NF and encourage financial and other forms of support from public and private sources. This is where the 2016 Parade comes in—for those who do not know of CTF before this Parade their mission is for all to become aware and to support. Continued support will go towards treatments and a cure for all the NF Heroes out there.
Delicious food from Parlay Gastropub.
Michael O’Reilly was Grand Marshall for this year’s event. After the parade pedestrians and Rockville Centre residents visited the many restaurants and pubs celebrating Irish Day. One big contributor and supporter of the event was Parlay Gastropub Restaurant, located at 210 Merrick Rd in Rockville Centre.
I sat down with Manager Rob Verderosa who explained what Irish Day means to the community and what Parlay Gastropub was offering.
Cognac: Welcome back darling I am Cognac Wellerlane and we are here at Parlay Restaurant to celebrate Irish Day and I am here with the Manager. Introduce yourself to the camera.
Rob: Absolutely, hello everyone my name is Robert Verderosa. We are here at Parlay Gastropub Restaurant in Rockville Centre. Today is the beautiful Irish Day festivities that are done in Rockville Centre every year.
I understand there was a big parade earlier and everyone came in here afterwards.
Rob: Yes, there is a big parade every year. It starts about 11:30 – 12:00 PM and then when the parade is done everyone and all the bars and the restaurants in the town celebrate the festivities from now until 1:00 AM.
Fantastic! First there was a brunch and now everyone is having dinner and a fantastic time. Tell my audience what we are eating… there’s chicken wings and there is also steak.
Rob: Yes, right here you have the Prime Rib French Dip—one of our staples here. We just updated our menu; we have eleven different flavors of wings that nobody has anywhere else. We are a gastropub. A lot of people ask, “What is a gastropub?” We are a pub that takes pride in high quality food and has a spin on certain dishes you would not normally see.
Parlay Gastropub offers a creative, high-quality food menu, an extensive specially cocktail list and 40 craft beers. Beer enthusiast can sample any beer by ordering a beer tasting flight with their meal. Parlay Gastropub was voted up one hundred brunches in America by Open Table. You can enjoy a decadent brunch menu of savory and sweet edible items unlike any other trendy eatery in Long Island.
They also serve delicious dinners accompanied by flat screen televisions to watch sport games and a vivacious party atmosphere on the weekends—there is always some thing for everyone to enjoy. The restaurant is open for dinner and happy hour Monday through Friday. After hours is party night on Fridays and Saturdays, and there is always brunch on Saturday and Sunday.
For more information please visit ParlayRVC.com.
