Bill and Loretta James decided to stop at their favorite neighborhood bar Tuesday after watching a groundbreaking ceremony for the future Amtrak service into Mobile featuring an appearance by U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.
They had no idea the keynote speaker would follow them into one of Mobile’s most recognizable neighborhood bars known for its hamburgers, live music and St. Patrick’s Day festivities.
“My daughter, when I told her we were going to the groundbreaking, said, ‘see if you can get a picture with him,’” Loretta James said, while seated at a booth inside Callaghan’s Irish Social Club with her husband sipping draft beer. “I said, ‘there’s too much (security) protection around him. I can’t get a picture with him.’”
She started to smile as she retold the story. At that same time, she was texting a picture she took with Buttigieg, who arrived at Callaghan’s Irish Social Club moments after speaking during a ceremony in downtown Mobile.
“She’s going to be amazed,” Loretta James said.
Her husband responded, “We had no idea Pete Buttigieg would come here. I used to live about a block away from here and used to come here fairly often. We said, ‘let’s come here’ (after the ceremony).”
Buttigieg spent some time during the afternoon inside Callaghan’s seated in a booth in the establishment’s back dining room meeting with Mobile Mayor Sandy Stimpson. The two have a prior history together as they were 2017 participants in the Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership Initiative. At the time, Buttigieg was the mayor of South Bend, Ind.
“Of the 40 mayors who were there, Mayor Pete was sort of the head of the class having graduated from Harvard and being a Rhode Scholar,” Stimpson recalled during his remarks at the groundbreaking ceremony.
Buttigieg, who won the Democratic Iowa caucuses as a presidential contender in 2020, spent time roaming around the Irish bar and meeting with a few of the patrons, before sitting down for an interview with AL.com. He said that Callaghan’s reminded him of his Upper Midwest roots.
“As far as we are from Indiana and Michigan, this reminds of me where I started out and that warm welcome,” Buttigieg said. “It makes me feel right at home.”
He also posed for pictures with workers and Callaghan’s owner John “J.T.” Thompson.
“I told them, we have never seen this many suits in here for sure,” Thompson said, adding with a smile that Stimpson was probably the biggest celebrity politician Callaghan’s has hosted during its long presence as a standout establishment in Oakleigh.
“It’s exciting,” Thompson said. “It’s fun and nice to see him in Mobile, too. We’re glad he’s here to kick off the (Amtrak project) and we are excited about that.”
Loretta and Bill James said that Amtrak’s arrival to Mobile is something they looked forward to seeing next year when the trains are expected to run. Amtrak, when it restarts Gulf Coast service sometime during the spring of 2025, will operate a twice-daily service between Mobile and New Orleans with four stops along coastal Mississippi.
“Loretta is from New Orleans, and we go to New Orleans often to visit family and friends, so going on a train would be super for us,” Bill James said.
