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Welcome to the Pub
Traci and Chris Burns converted their TV room into an Irish Pub.
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It all began when muralist Traci Burns asked her husband, Chris, what he wanted for Christmas.
His request? A mural of an Irish pub on the dining room wall of their Springfield home.
It took Traci twenty hours to complete the 10-foot-by-10-foot mural. But the project did not end there. Next, Chris painted the sun room green and added a bar and a few stools as a place to hang out with friends. That still did not slake his thirst for a true pub environment. So the Burnses went to work on their TV room, which they transformed into an Irish pub, complete with shamrock-green walls, a bar, and cocktail tables.
“We wanted a low-key environment where people could unwind after a hard work week,” says Chris.
The couple—who have been married for fifteen years and have no children—open the Burns Pub once a month to neighbors and close friends. Many of their “regulars” helped build the pub or contributed to its décor, donating license plates from around the country and items such as a wooden lid from a Napa Valley wine crate, purchased by neighbors on their honeymoon. “There are pieces of their memories on our walls,” says Chris.
All pubs have rules. This one has two: BYOB, and everyone must walk. “It eliminates the possibility of drunk driving,” says Chris, 41.
Most pub nights are spent watching a ball game and listening to music from the 1980s. Sometimes there is karaoke or the pub goers play Nintendo Wii. “It’s more an atmosphere of friends dropping by, so there’s no pressure of a formal party,” says Traci, 38, an artist for more than twenty years (springfieldartist.com).
The pub includes an arcade machine with 50 games—but no coin slot. “It is not about the money; we do it for the fun,” says Chris, a publishing professional. “If people ask what they could bring, we tell them pretzels.”
As the economy has declined, the pub crowd has taken on a new role as a support group. “Many of our neighbors have recently lost their jobs, and one of the blessings of it all is that we are here to support each other through these tough times,” says Chris.
Traci agrees. “They would do anything for us, and we would do anything for them. It’s a great community.”
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