BEST PINT OF GUINNESS on FIRST with BEN PRIOR
Dagda grew out of a long bartending career at Iron Monkey, Northern Soul, and other First Street institutions, and stands on a liquor license rescued after Iron Monkey’s failed redevelopment. The room stays bar‑service‑first so guests can move, meet, throw darts, and play pool instead of being locked into tables.
Dagda, Guinness, and the Service Culture of First Street
Guest: Ben Prior, co‑owner of Dagda in Jersey City and longtime First Street bartender.
From Iron Monkey to Dagda
When Ben talks about Dagda, he isn’t telling a startup fairy tale. He’s unpacking a working life that started behind the bar at Iron Monkey in 2007, moved through the Dubliner and the old Northern Soul on First and Monroe, detoured into opening multiple bars in White Plains, and eventually landed back in Hudson County at the new Northern Soul and Wilton House before Dagda ever existed.
Dagda itself starts with a single decision: what to do with a liquor license that suddenly needed a home. After Iron Monkey closed under a failed development deal, the license holder reached out. Ben looked at Bobby D’s, a neighborhood spot sitting empty enough to feel like a missed heartbeat, and almost took it over. That deal fell through at the last minute, but instead of retreating, the team kept walking Jersey City, looking for a room that felt right.
They found it on Newark Avenue, in the former Word Bookstore space then known as Cafe Corretto. Jazz and comedy nights were already happening there. A conversation with the operator led to a walkthrough. Permits, zoning, and timing dragged the process out long enough that Ben jokes they opened “a St. Patrick’s Day too late,” but the extra building time mattered. It gave Dagda room to grow from generic idea into a very specific bar.
What Dagda Is (and Isn’t)
Ben describes Dagda as “deeply Irish at its roots” without being locked into a postcard Irish pub template. The name itself comes from the Dagda, chief god in Celtic mythology, chosen because it was rooted, obscure, and flexible enough to let the bar find its own personality. That name gives them permission to be Irish in spirit without being literal in decor.
The original design brief was simple: capture the feel of the old Northern Soul on First Street—a good, clean neighborhood dive where the regulars and staff formed a moving community. As they spent more time in the build, choosing lights and surfaces, they realized they were drifting past dive bar into something else. Customers started calling Dagda an “elevated dive bar,” and Ben liked the phrase because it fit: the comfort and honesty of a dive, with enough thought in the system that regulars can tell someone cares.
That elevation isn’t about marble and cocktails. It’s about small but serious choices. Dagda keeps bar service instead of locking people into tables. The room is laid out so people can get up, move, throw darts, and play pool. It’s easier to cross paths with strangers. Ben contrasts this with places where you sit where you sit and never meet anyone new. For him, the defining trait of a true dive is that the product is the people, and the alcohol is just the way you sell that product.
Food, Small Kitchen, Big Intent
The episode doesn’t treat food as an afterthought. Dagda runs a small kitchen, so Ben and his partners had to design a menu around speed, prep, and consistency. They lean heavily into sous vide, cooking wings and hot dogs ahead of time and finishing them in an air fryer so the line can move without sacrificing texture. The result, in his words, is wings that “absolutely fall off the bone” and smash burgers that regulars already call the best in town.
From there, the menu branches out: dumplings, pierogies, empanadas, wedge salad, and a Colombian‑inspired street dog with pink sauce, coleslaw, pineapple sauce, and potato chips instead of fries on top. These aren’t thrown in to sound interesting. They’re built to let a small, constrained kitchen push out food that feels unexpected without slowing service to a crawl. For an episode about bar culture, that kind of operational detail matters more than adjectives.
First Street: One Bar, Many Names
When the conversation turns to First Street in Hoboken, the tone shifts from present‑tense operations to memory and culture. Ben describes the old corridor—Irish bars lined up along the block—as feeling like “one bar divided up into different DBAs.” The businesses had different names and owners, but the bartenders flowed from room to room, the regulars drank everywhere, and the standard of service felt shared rather than competitive.
Tom backs that up from a local’s point of view. He remembers living at First and Clinton and walking down on a random Tuesday or Wednesday to find lines outside an Irish bar on a school night. Comedy nights, darts, pool leagues, open mics—those were the scaffolding on top of a deeper reality: a stretch of industry pros who treated speed and hospitality as the price of admission. He jokes that if you opened a bar on First Street and couldn’t serve a hundred people in ten seconds, you were done. You watched Ben at Northern Soul or Cormac with a bottle opener in his hand and realized this wasn’t optional. It was survival.
Ben starts naming names: Moose, Craig, Cormac, Gary Shannon, Seamus Quinn, Brendan Gillespie, Cassie, Ashley, Arianna. The cast matters, because it turns the episode from vague praise into a record of specific people whose craft defined a time and place. The point isn’t just that the drinks were good. It’s that a row of bars assembled a “murderers’ row” of bartenders who took pride in their craft and, by doing so, earned the space to build relationships with the regulars they were serving at speed.
Hospitality as a System, Not a Mood
A thread running through the whole episode is Ben’s insistence that hospitality is a system, not a vibe. He tells stories about colleagues like Jenny, who worked nine years at the Shannon and could run the front and back bar solo on a packed Sunday, sprinting drinks all the way into the back room without losing pace. He talks about Nicole, coming from Louise & Jerry’s, another bar whose entire reputation is based on consistency and personality in a space that never really changed.
The way he praises them is revealing. He isn’t talking about charm or banter first. He’s talking about movement, urgency, and the idea that “service is the top priority, nothing else matters as long as someone’s getting their drink ASAP.” That lens turns hospitality from a soft concept into a repeatable discipline: layout, staffing, menu, taps, and culture all tuned to make sure speed and connection can coexist instead of cancel each other out.
Guinness: Different Gas, Different Standards
For many people, Guinness is just another line on the tap list. For Ben, it’s a separate system. In the episode he explains that most draft beers in a bar run off a standard CO₂ setup, while Guinness and other nitro beers require a 75/25 CO₂ / nitrogen mix and closer attention. Dagda backs this up with a dedicated gas manifold downstairs: full nitrogen, full CO₂, and a mixed gas line feeding the nitro taps, plus keg fridges built into the bar itself.
From there, he walks through the daily checks. Pressure has to be right. Temperature has to be stable. Lines have to be cleaned regularly. Every one of those points is a potential failure. If the gas runs low, the pint can go “inky”—visibly wrong in a way the drinker doesn’t need an expert to spot. If temperature drifts or valves aren’t fully open, you get either sluggish pours or off texture. In some bars, he notes, these issues can quietly persist for weeks because no one is truly accountable for Guinness quality.
Technique and presentation sit on top of that system. Ben emphasizes that “you eat with your eyes first.” A proper Guinness arrives with the head sitting proud over the rim, a pour that looks right before the first sip. It’s the kind of pint where you can almost taste it just by looking at it. That’s not a romantic detail. It’s a sensory check built into the ritual. When a bar takes that seriously, customers notice. When it doesn’t, they notice that too, even if they don’t know why something feels off.
Dagda as a Modern Inheritance
All of this—Dagda’s origin, the menu, the layout, the Guinness system, the First Street memories—adds up to a simple claim: Dagda is trying to inherit the best parts of Irish Row without pretending it’s the same street. Ben wants a bar where the product is still the people, where regulars can still move between games and conversations, and where the staff’s pride still shows up in the way the room moves on a crowded night.
From an editorial standpoint, that makes this episode more than a profile. It’s a record of how standards and culture travel. First Street’s “one bar divided up into different DBAs” may be gone, but its rhythms, service ethic, and insistence on doing simple things well still show up in a new room on Newark Avenue where someone like Ben is willing to explain exactly how and why it works.
FAQ
What is Dagda?
Dagda is an Irish‑rooted bar in Jersey City co‑founded by Ben Prior and partners. It sits in the former Word Bookstore / Cafe Corretto space on Newark Avenue and is designed to feel like an elevated dive bar: neighborhood‑level comfort paired with deliberate choices about layout, menu, and service.
Why does Ben call Dagda an “elevated dive bar”?
Because the bar aims for the open, conversational feel of a good dive—bar service, movement, games, strangers talking to each other—while still caring intensely about small details like food execution, Guinness systems, and staff culture. It’s meant to feel easy without being careless.
What makes a good Guinness according to this episode?
In Ben’s view, Guinness quality starts with a dedicated gas setup, correct pressure, stable temperature, clean lines, and daily systems checks. On top of that, the pour itself matters: a proper head sitting proud of the glass, a pint that looks right as it’s presented. When any part of that chain fails, the drink suffers.
What does “one bar divided up into different DBAs” mean?
That phrase is Ben’s description of First Street in Hoboken during its Irish bar heyday. Multiple bars shared bartenders, regulars, and standards, so the street felt like one continuous social space broken into different business entities rather than a row of unrelated rooms.
Why is this episode important to the Irish Row series?
Because it shows how the historical idea of the Irish bar as a social institution translates into modern operations. Ben’s stories turn abstract concepts like “Irish hospitality” into specific practices: how staff move, how taps are maintained, how menus are engineered, and how rooms are laid out to let people connect.
Ben Prior (00:00)
It was it was almost like it was was just one bar divided up into different DBAs. Like it was so I came over to Dublin, I left O'Lunnies in the city, I came over I was working at the Dublin, I had I did the second floor. And just a caliber of bartenders across across the whole row and you'd see every bartender in nearly every bar. And you'd see nearly regular in every bar as well. It was just a whole shared community.
was no there was no backbiting or like unhealthy competition. It was just one stretch of community. It was beautiful. Just industry pros right across, right up the street. Like like just and characters, like a cast of characters. Like Moose, Craig, Cormac, Gary Shannon, Seamus Quinn, Brendan Gillespie, Gacchenny, like just professional bartenders that like took pride in their craft.
I think that that was the key.
Announcer (01:06)
Welcome to this Behind Bars Network docuseries. If you like us, please subscribe on the Behind Bars Network YouTube channel or Spotify.
Ben Prior (01:17)
So I used to work in the Iron Monkey way back like two thousand and seven. it's funny because Brendan was talking about all the dive bars and he forgot to mention Northern Seoul, which I feel is like one of the best bars I've ever been a part of.
Announcer (01:30)
Band Part One Dagda in Jersey City
Ben Prior (01:35)
Yeah. So before that I worked at Iron Monkey for a s a very short stint. Well what they recently closed, I think it was where Steve ended up g like finishing up there. So he reached out to me and he was asking if I knew anybody that might be interested in liquor license. He was gonna get rid of it. Trying to sell it. I live up in the heights and so I'd seen Bobby D's just kinda sitting there and I just kinda got curious about that. So we we kinda pursued that spot. Nearly got it.
Ben Prior (01:53)
you
Ben Prior (02:04)
And then just kinda last minute fell through, I the lads Shadow ended up going in there. And they're still renovated. So just with that, I think Steve was gonna kinda retire from the game. It was him and a girl, Kayla, who was one of our partners here. They'd worked together for a long time, so we decided let's keep looking and let's do something with the license. So we just kinda
Ben Prior (02:09)
you
Thank
you
Ben Prior (02:26)
Looked everywhere
and anywhere around Jersey City and then just one day we're walking up New Orgav and just caught like it was Cafe. So it used to be Word Bookstore was a space and then Frank who had that and Roman knows. He he was just in the space, it was Cafe Correto, he was doing jazz and copy nights. So we just got chatting to him, told him what we were doing and he was like, yeah, do you wanna come take it take a look at this space? And so that's where finally got it open about a St. Patrick's Day too late.
Ben Prior (02:48)
you
.
Ben Prior (02:55)
So the
whole idea was to build off, base it off of the old Northern Souls, five five seven First Street, on First and Monroe. That same vibe. Just a good, kinda clean Dive neighborhood bar. And then I think I feel like the longer we spent in there building it, it's just kind of organically kind of surpassed Dive Bar, I guess. But we've heard the term elevate Dive Bar, which is which I kinda like. but we wanted to be an Irish bar.
Ben Prior (03:13)
you
Ben Prior (03:24)
But not typically Irish. So that's why we went with Dagda, which is deeply Irish at its roots. It's the chief god in Celtic mythology. Yeah. So we kind of just look and research the names. we came up with that. It was kinda like obscure. So I kinda I guess felt it would give us some just room to maneuver style-wise in the place. So it's kinda like the everything's seemed like it's an eclectic beer menu, the music's eclectic. Good menu. So that's pretty much the
Ben Prior (03:31)
you
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Ben Prior (03:53)
Yeah, crop summit.
Ben Prior (03:57)
Ben Pryor's pint pouring pedigree.
Ben Prior (04:04)
Probably 2006 to 2008. So it's pretty much just a doubler and then I had The Iron Monkey for a few months and then started on the Old Northern Soul. So it's at the Old Northern Soul for five years. And then myself, Cormac and Mark, opened up the bars in White Plains in 2014, and then that's a another long story for for another day. We ended up four bars in White Plains. So two of them were under one licence and then we ended up selling the other two.
Ben Prior (04:27)
you
Ben Prior (04:34)
And then I came back. And I was at the new Northern Soul for I guess over three years. And then Wilton House for the last five up until Open here.
Ben Prior (04:47)
The Old Northern Soul
Ben Prior (04:51)
So yeah, it was like you go down there and again it was like a great crowd. It was always lively. So Wednesday, so it was like a mix of things. You'd have like dance on Tuesday, have like live music, you'd have the Tool League on a Wednesday, and the open mic on a Wednesday. So it kinda always had a few things kind of stacked up. So the owners were Mark Russell and John McCloskey. And then Dole was my stunt W. People used to think we were same person. We looked we looked so much alike back then.
Because me and Donald were there for the whole time. But I was there. It was Cassie, Ashley, Ariana kind of cycle in throughout the years. Rusty and John are the two owners. Then we had Pat Pat Catron was there after me, rest in peace, great dude. I think he he came in just after I left up for White Plains. So most people probably know him more of Louise and Aries back in the day. I guess about a year ago.
Ben Prior (05:26)
you
Ben Prior (05:51)
We've actually very good food, a small kitchen, but we pump it out, we've got really good food. But we have it's all bar service. So we kinda wanted it. You go into a lot of places, you kinda sit where you're sitting and you don't really get a chance to kinda mingle and meet other people. So we wanted kind of people to have the freedom to kinda get up and go, we're gonna go over and play in a pool, throw some darts. Like it's easier, it's a lot easier to get chatting to people. And it's say that's it's working out exactly that way. So
And so I think yeah, I think some places Digo says some places the product is the cocktails, the product is the food. But I think with diet bars I think the product is the people, you know. And the the the the alcohol is just a way of kinda selling that, you know.
First Street Hoboken, Ir Row in the days of the old northern soul.
It was it was almost like it was was just one bar divided up into different DBAs. Like it was so I came over to Dublin or I left all Lonnies in the city, I came over I was working at the Dublin, I had I did the second floor and just a caliber of bartenders across across the whole row and you'd see every bartender in nearly every bar. And you'd see nearly regular in every bar as well. It was just a whole shared community.
Ben Prior (06:51)
you
Ben Prior (07:14)
was no there was no backbiting or like unhealthy competition. It was just one stretch of community. It was beautiful. Just industry pros, right across, right up the street like like just and characters, like a cast of characters. Like Moose, Craig, Cormac, Gary Shannon, Seamus Quinn, Brendan Gillespie, Gaceni, like just professional bartenders that like took pride in their craft.
Tom the producer (07:40)
Process
Ben Prior (07:44)
I think that that was the case.
Ben Prior (07:47)
Okay.
bringing Jenny over from the Shannon and stopping Dagda in Jersey City.
Ben Prior (07:55)
she was at Shannon for nine years. I think w she she was I don't wanna get her wrong. Yeah, she spent she spent a minute at the Shannon. But she's good. Like I've seen her work a s a Sunday on her own there. With the front bar and the back bar packed and she's dropping drinks off all the way into the back. Yeah, she's another one, takes pride, like moves, like service is the top priority.
Nothing else matters as long as someone's getting their drink, A S A B.
One Guinness and one Colombian inspired street dog.
The food menu here. So it's we have so we do smash burgers, wings and it sound like sounds simple but we have because our kitchen's so small we've we we have to to figure out a way of like prepping and getting it done as quick as possible. So we actually sou V a lot of our food. So like chicken wings absolutely fall off the bone. our smash burgers, people are saying it's the best burger in town already. So then we've got as I say exactly we got dumplings, pierogies, spinach empanadas, wedge salads.
Ben Prior (09:05)
you
Ben Prior (09:05)
we do.
We got the hot dog, we got a street dog at Colombian inspired street dog. So the Colombian street there's a few different variations of it. Ours is we have like a pink hot sauce, coleslaw, and we got like a pineapple sauce on it and then it's topped with not French fries, like potato chips.
Ben Prior (09:21)
you
Ben Prior (09:27)
Mine Nicole, another another. So she bartended Aloisa Jerry's. She was Aloisa Jerry's by the last six years. Another another star. Yeah. Probably would have fit in right between right between Mulligan's and Mag's head.
Announcer (09:43)
Pouring a pride, Guinness.
Ben Prior (09:45)
you
Ben Prior (09:46)
All other drafts go off is CO2 gas. And then the Guinness anti nitro goes off a 75, 25, CO2 nitrogen mix. But then we have downstairs then we have full nitrogen, full CO2 and a mix of for us. And then we have Kegurators up behind the bar. So it's mostly just keeping the pressure on the gas right, keeping the temperature right, keeping the lines clean regularly, and then just having people that care for it. So but
But it was brought my attention the other day that we have there's only two bars in the area here that have a five star rating on Plink's map and it's us on San Patricio's. So I've been I've been hardcore about making sure everybody's porn again's picture perfect every time. It's definitely technique. I a lot of like as I say, you deep with your eyes first. So when you get that pipe presented to you, the the head is up proud of the glass. It's like y you can almost taste it. I think a lot of places just
Ben Prior (10:32)
you
Ben Prior (10:40)
If you don't really pay attention, like your gas could go low, which which would cause like a like an inky point. So it's just kinda it's like a systems check every day. It's like check the temperature, check the pressure, check the gas, turn on.
It's just it's just a mo multiple little things that'll just ruin your pipe, you know. And I will just slip past for weeks in some places, so
Announcer (11:02)
Pouring printing.
Ben Prior (11:06)
Proper pint.
I have to give a shout out to Nicole, Louise and Jerry's, because she's one of those bartenders that like takes pride in every pour. you'll actually find her at Shannon on weekends now. I think she's calling out shift at Mulligan's, which another another absolutely solid pint and I can't pick out any one of the guys there because they all do a great job. Yeah, Mulligan's is historically a good pint.
Announcer (11:35)
Barney Finnegan's karaoke violence and who pours the best pint of Guinness?
Ben Prior (11:40)
you
Ben Prior (11:42)
But as far as the best bite in Hoboken, I have to give a nod to our to our boy Barney. He was like we there could be seven, eight of us out roaming around Hoboken and we would make a point to go out of our way. We were like, let's go down an Axehead and get a Guinness. And seven Guinness there, three or four rounds later, we back out and on. I actually brought I don't know if you ever heard of a an Irish artist Undy.
Ben Prior (12:01)
you
Ben Prior (12:07)
He did a famous song July and he does sings Galway Girl with Sharon Shannon. I actually he actually played at Northern Soul and I brought him down there for a pint after. I think we went there for one, same thing, I think we ended up having five or six. So if you ask, so if you ask Barney what the secret was to a good Guinness, he would tell you that he hugged every keg as soon as it came in. He wasn't he wasn't gonna give he wasn't gonna give away his secrets.
Ben Prior (12:21)
I
you
Tom the producer (12:36)
I love that man.
Ben Prior (12:38)
I actually I remember a funny story Paul Dawson's telling me. So he used to work I I I don't know if he it was related to the ownership of it. but McGurk's do you know where Dunkin' Donuts is down by the path train? So that used to be McGurk's, I think. I had to look up there last week just to make sure I was gonna get it right. But they used to do karaoke multiple nights a week and like the place to be packed. So one night it's packed, everybody sing karaoke and then Barney can't find the microphone, the microphone went listen. So eventually
Ben Prior (13:05)
you
Ben Prior (13:07)
He realized that Paulie Dawson had the microphone stuffed down his trousers. So when he found out he got the mic, I'm not sure if he threw it at him or if he hit him with it, but he split split Dawson's head open. Dawson had to go get stitches. And he ended up going against stitches and then he came back, made it, made it for some drinks, poured it at the end of the night. I think yeah I think you should also tell you Paulie Dawson, and I'm sure he has more stories than anybody.
Ben Prior (13:27)
you
Tom the producer (13:34)
Ben, thank you so much. I might bug you again.
Ben Prior (13:37)
That's pretty cool. Let's sit there all the I don't know what you do on that.
Ben Prior (13:39)
you
Tom the producer (13:41)
Thank you so much for your time. You've got a wonderful reputation amongst your peers. I'll talk to you soon and I'll I'll shoot you a link.
Ben Prior (13:45)
.
Ben Prior (13:48)
Can you do me a favor,
can you send me Patty's number? I told her.
Tom the producer (13:51)
Yeah well.
Announcer (13:55)
Find Ben Prior founded by heavy hitting hospitality professionals at Dugda. That's 123 Newark Avenue, Jersey.
Ben Prior (13:56)
Yeah, surrounded
Yeah.
Tom the producer (14:06)
Produced with support from Patty at Piccolo's famous for cheese steaks, 100 steps from the old Magshead pub on Clinton Street in Hoboken.