O’Gara’s Bar & Grill may be under construction, but the original building isn’t gone forever. Former patrons can buy a brick from the building to support the Alzheimer’s Association of Minnesota.

O’Gara’s will stay in the same Selby and Snelling avenues location, but Ryan Company will develop the property into a smaller-sized building with four stories of apartments added above the rebuilt bar and grill.

“It’s really bittersweet,” co-owner Kris O’Gara said. “Change is hard for people, especially this building has been there so long … we’re very hopeful for the future and we know it was the right decision.”

Once the demolition news broke, people started asking about how they could keep a piece of O’Gara’s Bar & Grill, O’Gara said.

“I started thinking about if there was a way that we could get the bricks out of the building and do it more as kind of a fundraiser,” O’Gara said “I really wanted to try that.”

There is a 20 dollar suggested donation for the bricks, and all proceeds will go toward the Alzheimer’s Association Minnesota.

O’Gara said they chose the suggested 20 dollars per brick donations to go to the Alzheimer’s Association Minnesota because the disease runs in their family.

“Some of our friends’ parents have had (Alzheimer’s), and it’s just devastating to see. They talk about the memories that aren’t there any more,” O’Gara said. “It’s just really sad. Things that they don’t remember.”

People can purchase individual bricks at Park Liquor Store across the street from the O’Gara’s site. Chad Radenbaugh, the owner of Park Liquor, has done a lot to help the O’Gara’s with their project, O’Gara said.

“We released (the bricks) Friday night, and by Saturday morning the liquor store was sold out,” O’Gara said. “We have a supply that’s put away that they’ll replenish as long as they can.”

Before Jim O’Gara bought the bar in 1941, O’Gara’s was called the Rendezvous. His son, Tim O’Gara, bought it in 1972. In 2003, Dan O’Gara and his wife Kris took over.

“My husband grew up in the business,” O’Gara said. “That’s all he wanted to do. That’s where his love was, that’s where his passion is.”

All three of Kris and Dan’s children have worked at O’Gara’s. Their middle daughter, Shea, graduated from St. Thomas in the spring of 2018. Kris earned a master’s degree in business with an emphasis in human resources from St. Thomas in 1991.

“We want to retain the O’Gara’s charm that was always there. We’ve taken a lot of the memorabilia and we took the tin ceilings and we took some of the wall portion out that we want to incorporate into the new O’Gara’s but we want to keep up with the times too,” O’Gara said. “[It’s] still a neighborhood bar and grill.”

Rachel Torralba can be reached at torr3544@stthomas.edu.