HANOVER — When Buddy Teevens was head coach of Dartmouth College’s football team, he would often bring recruits and alumni to Molly’s Restaurant and Bar to break bread.
“You always know someone who’s in there. That was always a really nice thing in recruiting,” Kirsten Teevens, Buddy’s wife, said in an interview.
In 2023, 18 years into his second stint as Big Green’s head coach, Buddy Teevens died of injuries from a bicycling accident. He was 66.
To honor the late coach, Molly’s owner Jennifer Packard is naming her second restaurant venture after him.
Buddy T’s Grill and Sports Bar, a collaboration with Molly’s chef Ryan O’Day, is slated to open in mid-January in the Lebanon Street location formerly occupied by Dunk’s Sports Grill, Packard said.
“I think it’s going to be a great place … for alumni when they come to town. I think it’s going to be a real celebration of Dartmouth sports and beyond,” Kirsten Teevens said.
Photos and memorabilia from Buddy Teevens’ life, donated by Kirsten Teevens and former athletes and coaches, will be on display in the restaurant.
Packard plans to make some changes to the space, including installing a pool table, but the flat screen TVs tuned to sports will remain.
Supporting other sports teams on campus was important to Buddy Teevens, said Josh Greene, a member of the class of 2023 who played long snapper for the Big Green.
If women’s volleyball or soccer had a home game, Teevens would “encourage us to go and cheer them on,” Greene said.
Packard wants to honor that community spirit by representing all Dartmouth sports at the restaurant.
“We don’t want it to be thought (of) completely as a football sports bar,” she said.
Packard purchased Dunk’s from former Molly’s owner Tony Barnett, of Blue Sky Restaurant Group, in a sale effective Jan. 1. Both Barnett and Packard declined to provide the sale price.
It’s the second Hanover restaurant Packard has purchased from Barnett. In 2024, Barnett sold Molly’s to Packard to free up more time to spend with his family.
Barnett also sold Jesse’s Steaks, Seafood and Tavern, a landmark restaurant on Route 120, to Jesse’s longtime manager Patrick Reed earlier this year.
Reed has continued to operate the restaurant under the same name.
For now, Barnett has no intention of selling Snax, a casual eatery in Lebanon’s Centerra Parkway and the lone remaining restaurant under the Blue Sky umbrella.
“Honestly it’s so well-managed that it’s not very often that they need me to contribute to the operations,” he said.
In contrast, the Lebanon Street location has seen multiple concepts come and go in recent years. Salt hill Pub had a decade-long tenure in the space starting in early 2010 before closing during the coronavirus pandemic. Dunk’s opened soon after, in 2021.
Dunk’s struggled with staffing such that the business could open only for lunch or dinner. Barnett opted to stay open for dinner and focus on Dunk’s bar service, a decision he ultimately regrets.
The “national trend (is) that drinking is kind of out of fashion,” he said. “Young people are not drinking like they used to.”
He had originally hoped to sell Dunk’s to one of the restaurant’s managers, but “the business just didn’t quite have the stability that it needed” for a fledgling restaurateur to take the reins, he said.
He reckons Packard will make a better go of the business.
“I just think it’s a great idea. I think everything’s just better about it. They’re going to focus on food more,” he said.
O’Day plans to split his time between the kitchens at Buddy T’s and Molly’s, which are located about a football field’s length from each other, Packard said.
For the menu, he’s going for a combination of pub fare such as nachos and smoked wings and casual dishes such as smash burgers, pastas and salads.
Libations will range from classic cocktails to pitchers of beer.
Buddy T’s will be open daily, except for Tuesdays. The restaurant will be open from 4 p.m. on Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, with the kitchen serving food until 10 p.m. and the bar open until 11 p.m.
On Fridays, the kitchen will stay open an hour later, and the bar will close at 1 a.m.
On weekends, the restaurant will serve food from 11:30 a .m., with the kitchen open until 11 p.m. on Saturdays, and the bar serving until 1 a.m. On Sundays, the kitchen closes at 10 p.m. and the bar closes at 11 p.m.
Packard and O’Day are in the process of hiring 20 to 30 employees for the restaurant’s front and back of house in advance of the mid-January opening.
Employees at Molly’s will have the option to work at both places, and the restaurant’s chefs will help train Buddy T’s incoming kitchen staff, Packard said.
“It’s all very much one big family,” she said.