It promises to be a festive St. Patrick’s Day celebration Saturday night at Isadore’s Restaurant complete with an impish Leprechaun and a first generation Irish woman – a colleen if you will – serving the traditional corned beef and cabbage.

Leprechaun Sandy Cappozzi will double as bartender filling beer mugs with the traditional green suds of old Ireland with the All Star 209 Band set to entertain the merry makers in the lounge.  Danceable tunes of the big band ‘40s along with music from the  ‘50s and ‘60s eras are the order of the night.

With Cappozzi a Leprechaun by nature, Isadore’s owner Laurel Fang said customers need to keep a close eye on her and those pesky “little people” because you never know what they might dream up to put in your drink.

For restaurant server and Irish native Maureen Reynolds, St. Patrick’s Day celebrations in The States are far different from what she remembers in her youth in the north of Ireland nestled in a little town known as Ballygawley.

She said she and her family lived about an hour west of Belfast, where at 16 she decided to immigrate to the U.S. and become a nanny in Denver where a cousin was already working for a family there. She moved to Manteca within a year. 

“I can still remember the morning I left.  My mom was standing on the step crying and I was telling her I would be back in six months.  The youngest of seven kids, I was very excited to go to be a big girl and live the American dream,” she said.  “Here I am 27 years later having met my husband the first year I was here and we have been married ever since.”

Maureen said it’s funny that she remembers so clearly how St. Patrick’s Day was celebrated in her homeland – maybe because she was raised an Irish Catholic, she added.

She said her family would go to Mass in the morning and Mass again at night with the parish priest visiting the school classrooms and quizzing the children on their prayers.

“I remember my dad picking little bunches of shamrocks outside and pinning them to our shirts.  That was our green,” she recalled.  Our corn beef and cabbage was very different at home.  We called it boiled bacon and it’s a treat every time I go home – maybe it’s because of all the rain and all the green grass.  Even that big scoop of butter on our spuds, as we called them, tasted better.”

Maureen said when her mother comes to Manteca to visit – to this day – she always brings butter and her homemade soda bread.  Sometimes she will even sneak a few potatoes in her suitcase because they taste so much better. 

With more memories surfacing of her Irish home of long ago she added, “The chocolate is the best and there’s nothing like it.  Dang, now I’m homesick.”  She noted that it was a social culture that she knew in Ireland where everyone knew everyone else – talking to folks on the street was second nature.

Restaurant co-owner Laurel Fang with her husband Isadore said they definitely have the “luck of the Irish” with them in their business with a loyal staff that spent many nights redecorating the lobby and dining rooms and lounge on their own.  It was at first a game by the staff to see if Laurel would notice the improvements when she came in to work.  She had been ill for a period of time and their game plan was to cheer her up as she tried to work through the ordeal of not feeling well.

Those responsible for the face lift and added decorations included Kelly Pace, Maureen Reynolds, Marissa Canady and Josh Camden.  In addition to painting walls in beige, sand and a soft pink called “Anna,” the team took down all the burgundy curtains that separated the booths in the dining room, washed them and hung them out to dry and re-hung them.

The corn beef and cabbage will be served from 5 until 9:30 p.m. at a cost of $8 on Saturday.  The band, with no cover charge,  is set to begin entertaining at 8 p.m. and will be open to special requests.