Red Parka turns golden — 50 years of a Mount Washington Valley landmark

Terry O'Brien's parents purchased the Red Parka Pub in 1972. (Red Parka Pub)

As if the building already wasn’t a domicile of reminiscence each time you enter its doors, the memories really came flooding back at the Red Parka Pub’s 50th anniversary celebration in early November. 

“It was amazing,” Red Parka owner Terry O’Brien said. “People came from all over. People I hadn’t seen in years.

“Some days, I think it’s been 150 (years). But going through all of the photographs and everything when we were putting the video together really just brought back so many memories. My parents started it and I thought they’d lost their minds. But we had so many people come and join us, having a great time and celebrating. It was amazing.” 

It is of little surprise that guests would come out of the woodwork for the pub’s landmark event, a celebration of the Red Parka’s reputation in New Hampshire’s Mount Washington Valley. Located at the junction of Routes 16 and 302 in Glen, the Red Parka has long been mentioned among the best après-ski spots in all of New England. Location has plenty to do with it — Attitash, Wildcat and Cranmore are all within a 15-mile radius — but so, too, is the establishment’s longtime embrace of skiing and those who love it. That’s not to mention the prime ribs, burgers and other defining menu items that have fed hungry patrons since the beginning. 

“In the early years, we actually had one of our bartenders go out with this huge video camera and take videos of people skiing at Cranmore or Wildcat, and then we’d show them in the bar,” O’Brien said. “Then we we did the slides. We always had the slide projector going in the dining room with pictures of local people. And you know, we did a good job with the food. We still do. And people loved that. They liked the whole vibe. They liked the peanuts and popcorn and the friendly people that worked here that were outgoing and just really liked doing what they were doing. And it showed.” 

O’Brien didn’t understand what was going through her parents’ minds when they purchased the restaurant in 1972. A former general store, the previous owners had housed a restaurant in the building for only four years prior to it changing hands. The O’Brien family resided in Scituate, Mass., but had a cabin located in Fryeburg, Maine, where they would head north on weekends to ski at Pleasant Mountain (the Maine ski area would go on to be named Shawnee Peak before retrofitting its original name beginning this season). 

“There was one summer my parents decided to rent out our house in Scituate and spend the summer up here,” O’Brien said. “That was because I was going to be starting college and they had friends, Lois and Al Nelson, who had a camp right near them. They had such great time, they decided, ‘Why don’t we just continue this? Let’s find a business we can get into.’ This place was on the market. So they decided they were going to go into the restaurant business, with no experience whatsoever.” 

The building had been known for a few years as the Red Parka, a nod to the red parkas that ski instructors and patrollers wore on the slopes in earlier days. As you might have guessed, things looked a lot different back then. The modern-day bar area used to be a big barn, detached from the rest of the building. The O’Briens leased the spot for a couple years from Irwin Grant, who owned nearby Grant’s Supermarket. “They did an OK business, but it just wasn’t what (the Grants) wanted to be doing,” O’Brien said. “(My family) had a good year, the first year. They all worked their butts off. I decided not to continue college and came back to work. So they decided they would end up buying it.” 

One day, O’Brien’s father walked up to Grant, who happened to be working the cash register at the market at the time. “Well, looks like you had a pretty good year,” Grant said, as O’Brien relayed the conversation. “Do you think you want to buy this place?” 

They shook hands over the register. 

“And that was it,” O’Brien said. 

A lot has changed for the Parka since those rowdy early days. “We didn’t really have liquor inspectors we had to worry about,” O’Brien said. “Everybody kind of took care of themselves or they had friends driving them home. We didn’t have to deal with overconsumption as much. People would leave the mountain because they didn’t have entertainment at the mountains afterward. So they’d come straight here. Now, we’re dealing with people that have maybe had a couple of cocktails at the mountain and then they come here. We have to be a lot more careful now than we ever had to be before. That’s kind of sad, but you know, it’s the way of the world. So, we try to be very responsible and make sure that everybody gets home safe.” 

Despite the challenges of staffing the restaurant over the past three years during the pandemic, O’Brien feels the legacy that the pub has endured for five decades. 

“I think you’ve got to be somewhat nuts to be doing it, for sure. Especially in the last few years,” she said. “One of the things that I’ve found is the people that have come up to me in recent years and thanked me for still being here and still doing things the way we always have; that their parents and grandparents had been coming here for years. Just the knowledge that there’s so many people that really love this place. That says a lot.” 

As for the future, that’s somewhat uncertain, O’Brien said, as she gets older. Her twin daughters are dedicated elsewhere — one is a part-owner of a restaurant with her father in Fryeburg, the other works for the Four Seasons in Jackson Hole. “Would I like to hand the legacy down? Absolutely. Do I think it’s going to happen? I’m not sure.

“But if if I have to sell to an outsider, I won’t be able to watch it happen. There’s too much of me in here and too much of my whole family. My little kids, as babies, would sit in their baby chairs on the prep table while the prep ladies made cheese-stuffed potatoes. I used to pay the girls 50 cents to pick up the parking lot with me.” 

But that’s a discussion for another time. Today, the Red Parka Pub remains a constant in an ever-changing landscape of the Mount Washington Valley, an old friend that remains as comfortable and familiar even 50 years later.

Eric Wilbur can be reached at [email protected].