A week ago, Jeff Donnelly threw open the doors to a new venue called Clough Club. “It’s a really cool artisanal cocktail lounge,” says the president of the Donnelly Group in a phone interview. Located at 212 Abbott Street, next to the Lamplighter in Gastown, it focuses on dark spirits and serves spicy Central and South American tapas. “It’s so new for our company,” he enthuses, noting that he frequents this kind of whisky/bourbon/Scotch bar on his travels and always wanted to open one here.

But asked whether he’s more excited about this venture or a pub that’s been in Kitsilano since its hippie days, Donnelly can’t decide. That’s because—after four long years—Bimini’s is finally back.

“It’s sort of my baby, and I couldn’t wait to see it come back and be rebuilt,” he tells the Straight. It’s been a long wait. The 2010 West 4th Avenue pub closed after a fire on October 4, 2007, and quietly reopened as the Bimini Public House at the end of last month. It’s being officially relaunched on Thursday night (December 8).

Although the Donnelly Group now operates 14 restaurants, pubs, and clubs, Bimini’s was Donnelly’s first solo project. He bought it in 1999 at the age of 24 and bartended there every Monday for four years.

Bimini’s history goes further back. According to Donnelly, “it was the first neighbourhood-pub licence that was granted in B.C.” Before the licensing laws were changed in 1974, “you couldn’t actually find a pub or a bar that wasn’t attached to a hotel, essentially.” It was located across the street from Greenpeace’s head office, and the environmental activists “held a ton of their meetings there”, he says. “In its heyday it was fantastic—back in the ’70s and early ’80s—but in the ’90s it really tumbled.…If you went in there on a Friday night, there’d be two people sitting at the bar.”

Photos that harken back to Kitsilano's Greenpeace history adorn the walls at Bimini's. Carolyn Ali photo.

Donnelly revived the watering hole in the 2000s. Then, in 2007, it underwent extensive renovations, and a construction fire decimated it just before it was to reopen.

“It was a weird, stupid, freak mistake,” Donnelly recalls. Just before the early-morning fire, workers had finished touching up the paint and put plastic sheets over the walls and lighting sconces. While they were out back, a contractor—who didn’t know that painters had been in—arrived and turned on the lights. The plastic caught fire, igniting a gas furnace, and the whole thing went up in flames.

So why did it take four years to get Bimini’s back on its feet? Donnelly attributes the delay to “a lot of issues with the building”, including legal dealings, complex development permits, and the difficulty of rebuilding the structure. (He says the 90-year-old building was used at different points for boat manufacturing and as a church; after the fire, they found a creek beneath it.)

“We kept the same bones that it used to have,” he says of the new Bimini’s layout.

The new Bimini has kept the same "old boot" feeling. Carolyn Ali photo.

The lower room features old-school video games and pool and foosball tables, and there’s now a second bar on the upstairs mezzanine. Reclaimed wood beams hang from the ceiling in the main room, and photos documenting the area’s Greenpeace history adorn the walls throughout. But Donnelly says he didn’t want to change the pub too much from what the neighbourhood was used to. “The whole goal of the project was to keep that ‘old boot’ feeling. You want to walk in and it’s like your favourite pair of old boots.”

Chef Robert Belcham (co-owner of Refuel and Campagnolo) consulted on the menu. Belcham worked with the Donnelly Group’s executive chef, Michael Knowlson, to revamp menus for all the Donnelly pubs in November. There’s a new emphasis on quality with local, organic ingredients and “more of a gastropub style, although I hate using that word”, Donnelly says. The burgers, wings, nachos, and fish and chips are still on Bimini’s menu, but choices also include a quinoa salad with a harissa vinaigrette, a buttermilk-chicken-and-waffle sandwich, and char-grilled Vietnamese short ribs. (Mains run $11 to $17, and gluten-free options are available.) All the pubs have increased their craft-beer selection; Bimini’s now boasts 24 beers on tap, many of them craft.

Clough Club is all about the cocktails, with a pre- and post-Prohibition angle. (The lounge is named after John Clough, who lit the coal-oil lamps in Gastown in the late 19th century.) Donnelly’s beverage director Trevor Kallies emphasizes classics such as the Sazerac as well as house cocktails and modern classics from talented barkeeps. Tapas ($5 to $10) include quesco fresco quinoa fritters, empanadas, scallop ceviche, and crispy plantains.

More projects are in the works. Bedfellows—a “gin bar serving dim sum, with a club downstairs”—is slated to open this spring at 120 Hamilton Street. And Donnelly plans to put a 150-seat bar with a 40-seat patio at the old Capones location (1141 Hamilton Street), which is below another of his pubs, the New Oxford (which has its entrance on Homer).

His venues may be spreading around Yaletown, but Donnelly still holds nostalgia for Bimini’s. “People are so excited it’s back. My mom started crying when she came in,” he says. “It’s the same space, it’s just new and improved….I really believe that people are going to walk in there and go ‘Wow! This is my spot again.’ ”

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