Alhambra Irish House feels like a little slice of Europe dropped into downtown Redwood City, a Bay Area venue where you can sit down for dinner, talk for hours over a pint of Guinness, and discover both local and international bands and performers. It is exactly the kind of venue Local Music Hub exists to champion, because it does everything right for both artists and audiences.
In Europe, it is normal to find venues where you reserve a table and spend the night listening to a band instead of treating live music as background noise. Alhambra Irish House brings that local music model to the Peninsula, pairing a full dinner menu with a consistent calendar of live performances in a historic theater space that still shows off its brick walls and wooden columns.
The building itself has a storied past, having first opened in 1896 as the Alhambra Theatre and Saloon. It quickly became a hub for art, entertainment, and community gatherings, hosting grand productions and balls, and even serving as the meeting place for legendary figures like Wyatt Earp and his wife Josephine Sarah Marcus, who fell in love here. The Alhambra continued its legacy as a center for live performances and social events for decades, later serving as a meeting place for groups like the Freemasons during Prohibition. After a fire in the early 2000s, the owners chose to preserve the smoke marks and original columns as a tribute to the building’s history, giving guests a real sense of its rich past. But as a Redwood City Pulse article highlighted just last month, the past here isn't strictly historical, it’s spectral. The building is rumored to be the eternal home of the "Lady in Blue," a ghost said to be a former actress who still watches over the theater, adding a layer of supernatural lore to the atmosphere.
You can settle in with shepherd’s pie or fish and chips, and my favorite, the Scotch eggs, knowing that the night is as much about listening to live music as it is about eating and drinking.
Barry, originally from the Czech Republic, owns Alhambra with her Irish husband. What makes the Alhambra special is not just that it has live music, but that there is a rhythm to the week: people learn that on certain nights they can come to dance, on others to hear blues, rock, or something completely unexpected. The calendar is packed with themed nights, from live-band karaoke to various local bands and line dancing, even single nights, making it easy for regulars to build habits around live music instead of treating it as an occasional bonus. That sense of predictability and variety is exactly how scenes grow: you know that if you show up, something is happening.
Barry personally curates the bands, mixing strong local players with international acts that you would not expect to find in the back room of an Irish pub off Main Street. On one recent visit, walking in “just for a drink” turned into stumbling onto Plaster, an Israeli rock band playing to a room full of people who clearly knew every word in Hebrew, even though many of us did not understand the language at first, but were mesmerized by how good the band was and I want to add, how good the sound was in the room.. It was a reminder that the Peninsula can host global music without losing its neighborhood feel.
Alhambra’s international flavor is not an accident; it comes straight from Barry’s story. When she mentioned she was Czech, my immediate reaction was to shout out “Dalibor Janda!” and I did. Janda is a legendary Czech rock artist whose song “Kill My Heart” once soundtracked a college ski trip in the mountains of Transylvania, complete with a dramatic crush on a much better skier and that song on repeat all weekend. That deeply personal association with Czech rock made it all the more surreal when Barry casually replied, “Dalibor was here last year,” confirming that this tiny corner of Redwood City had, at some point, hosted the European artist. She said, “We bring here artists from all over the world.” Moments like that are why venues matter: they collapse distances between continents, past and present, fan and artist.
One of the Local Music Hub artists and regular Alhambra Irish House performer, Walter Jebe Blues Band, took the stage on a Friday night we were there as part of the Alhambra Irish House Blues Showcase, their deep grooves and soulful riffs filling the historic space while people danced. Making space for people to dance is also very thoughtful and rare in an expensive area where many owners don't want to give up revenue-generating table space. Yes, the place is huge so she has more space than others, but she also has the desire to prioritize the experience over maximum seating capacity.
Alhambra Irish House is a family operation, and Barry’s dedication to building community through music is evident in everything from the diverse lineup to the warm hospitality. The pub leans into classic Irish comfort; Barry’s husband, Eric, who owns both Alhambra Irish House and St. Stephen’s Green in Mountain View with her, is Irish. One of their sons works there as well.
From a Local Music Hub perspective, Barry is doing all the right marketing activites like building a recognizable weekly schedule, promoting specific bands and themed nights, and turning first-time visitors into regulars through consistent food, drink, and sound. If you care about the future of the local scene, put Alhambra on your regular rotation; come for the Scotch eggs or the Guinness, stay for the music, and let yourself be surprised by the performance (and perhaps the ghost).