A bio box for Tim Quinn
Updated: 4 hours ago
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2025 Business Leaders of the Year
Business Leaders of the Year: Quinn willed his brother's restaurant dreams into a success
Photo | Matt Wright
Tim Quinn, owner of Quinn's Irish Pub in Worcester and Quinn's Blue Plate in Holden
By Laura Finaldi
Opening a restaurant was something Tim Quinn and his brother, Ryan, always wanted to do. Ryan went to Salve Regina University and cut his teeth at restaurants in Newport, Rhode Island, and Tim worked in sales, with no restaurant experience other than one bad day as a dishwasher when he was 15.
The brothers, Worcester natives and born less than two years apart, often dreamed of opening an eatery that would feel like home to the Worcester community.
That plan was cut tragically short in 2014, when Ryan died of a sudden heart attack. His death, Tim said, shook the family and the city. But Tim never forgot their mutual dream, and it wasn’t long before he saw a “For lease” sign outside a building at 715 W. Boylston St.
“I looked at the note on the door, called the landlord, and the rest is history,” Quinn said. “It was a whim. If that sign wasn't on the door, for whatever reason, who knows how things would have turned out.”
That was about a decade ago, and in July, it’ll be 10 years since Quinn took over the lease at the West Boylston Street building. His restaurant, Quinn’s Irish Pub, opened in 2016, and in 2019 he expanded, taking over the famed Blue Plate restaurant in Holden and turning it into Quinn’s Blue Plate.
Quinn has been a successful restaurateur for almost a decade, but when he started, he had no experience. Besides that one bad dishwashing day, he had never taken an order, flipped a burger, or even sat a table. He knew this, and he got help from friends, owners of Funky Murphys Bar & Grill in Worcester, who offered to train him. He worked at Funky Murphys to get a feel for the business while his restaurant’s buildout was underway.
“They said, ‘You literally have no clue what you’re doing. Let us come in as silent partners, to show you the ropes,’” Quinn said. “And as soon as we opened, it was go time.”
Those first two years were exhausting, he said. He would wake up, head straight to work, and fall asleep as soon as he got home.
Molly McCullough, a friend who worked at Quinn’s for five years as a bartender, remembers those days. Today, she said, Quinn’s has evolved into a neighborhood gathering space known for good food and service.
“Even though it was always a dream, it was something he didn’t have hands-on experience with until the building was being renovated. It took a bit to hit the ground running, but he was a business-oriented guy,” McCullough said. “He understands business, but he also understands managing all these employees with all these different needs, everyone from young people to people of more mature ages. He put the right people together at the right time.”
Community involvement is a big part of what Quinn’s does, McCullough said. Quinn is always the first person to donate food or gift cards, to sponsor a Little League team. It’s important to give back to the community because to a neighborhood bar, community is everything.
“Worcester has such a sense of community; there’s zero degrees of separation,” he said. “When I meet someone from here that says, ‘Small world’ and I say, ‘No small Worcester.’ I'll be like, ‘I’m in Florida, how do you know someone who lived on the same street as me growing up?’”
McCullough was engaged to Ryan Quinn when he died, she said. They had just gotten engaged the week before. After his death, she remained close with the family and with Tim, who she said is a sort of pseudo brother-in-law.
Ryan would be incredibly proud of his younger brother, she said; he’s probably watching over him now.
“He looks down every day and just thinks it's so amazing that their dream really did become a reality: not just that Tim was able to open it, but to maintain it,” she said. “He would be so proud of his whole family, but especially Tim, for making it a reality.”
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