

In Helsingborg, Sweden, a picturesque town dating back to medieval times on the country’s southern coast, a sports pub set back from the main street would make a Bostonian look twice. A life-size likeness of Tom Brady adorns the entrance, below a green and white logo bearing a distinctly Irish name. Inside, virtually every inch of wall space is covered in Boston memorabilia — Bruins championship banners, framed photos of Red Sox sluggers, even a wall devoted to the Celtics (more recent) Big Three.
The scene is a little disorienting, and one might suspect it’s the doing of a homesick expat. Yet O’Learys (no relation to the Irish pub in Brookline) is the work of an enterprising Swede who happened to fall in love with Boston three decades ago. From a humble start in Gothenburg, about two hours north, O’Learys has grown to a chain of 122 locations throughout Scandinavia and as far flung as Abu Dhabi and Singapore.
I first encountered O’Learys four years ago while visiting my partner’s family in Helsingborg. The pub is a popular meeting spot among his friends, who don’t seem to think much about the Boston-inspired décor. To them — and to most of the patrons I observed — it’s primarily a place to watch sports (mainly soccer), drink beer, and eat burgers (options for which include a Boston Celtic BBQ cheeseburger and Bobby Orr’s bacon burger). This perhaps explains the company’s success: As Sweden’s first sports bar and restaurant, it filled a niche in a country that’s every bit as sports-crazed as Boston is.
Jonas Reinholdsson, O’Learys’ founder, came up with the concept while working on Nantucket in 1987. Just 25 then, but already with a decade’s worth of experience working in restaurants, he was inspired by the food and by the New England sports lore and camaraderie among fans. A lifelong sports fan himself with a particular fondness for the Bruins, Reinholdsson was “fed with tradition’’ during his stint on the island, working alongside Red Sox and Celtics devotees. He followed the Celtics that spring as they beat the Detroit Pistons in the Eastern Conference Finals to return to the NBA championship series. He took a trip up to Boston and visited The Fours on Canal Street, which further cemented his idea of launching a sports bar back home. At the time, he says, the idea seemed far-fetched.
“People thought no one would ever watch sports out at a bar,’’ he recalls. “Part of it was that options for watching sports on TV at that time were very limited.’’
Another critical bit of inspiration came in the form of a woman that Reinholdsson met on Nantucket. Anne O’Leary, from Natick, was working with her brother on the island. The two hit it off, and they stayed in touch after he returned to Sweden that September. By the time she moved there the following summer, Reinholdsson’s plans to open a Boston-Irish-inspired restaurant and bar were firmly in place. At his urging, she gave her name to the endeavor. (No apostrophe is needed to form a possessive in Swedish; hence, the name O’Learys.)
The first O’Learys opened in a small, second-floor space in downtown Gothenburg in November 1988. Reinholdsson had taken it over from another restaurant that was on the verge of bankruptcy. With the help of friends from New England, he transformed it to mimic the restaurants and pubs that had so captured his imagination. There was dark wood and brass fixtures throughout; the walls were painted green. The menu featured standard American pub fare like burgers and buffalo wings — not all that common in Sweden at the time — along with more upscale selections inspired by Reinholdsson’s time on Nantucket. Schlitz — the only American beer available in Sweden at the time — was served, and it became a bestseller.
Though the first O’Learys had four TVs, its character was less sports bar than friendly neighborhood pub. Reinholdsson likens it to Cheers (back then the Bull & Finch Pub), another of his inspirations. (“With Cheers, you had to go down a flight of stairs; at the first O’Learys, you had to go up a flight,’’ he likes to say.) It wasn’t until he reopened in a larger location at the end of the following year that televised sports became more central to its identity. Much of this was timing: Sports broadcasting in Sweden was just starting to pick up. English Premier League and Champions League matches were more widely available starting in the early ’90s. This, coupled with the 1994 World Cup, in which Sweden won third place, stoked a new fervor in watching sports publicly.
“A lot changed pretty quickly,’’ recalls Anders Berg, a longtime O’Learys patron from Kungsbacka, just outside of Gothenburg. “[Reinholdsson] picked up on that and found the way to go. A lot of people love sports in Sweden, so the idea of a sports bar doesn’t seem strange now. But back then, it really was just starting.’’
Capitalizing on the surge in interest, Reinholdsson opened more locations. By 2000, there were 15 O’Learys throughout the country, each chockfull of pictures, signs, jerseys, and other artifacts purchased during visits to Boston. (Reinholdsson still buys items for the restaurants at the local pro shops and souvenir stores, as well as online.) American sports were included in the usual programming mix of soccer, hockey, and other sports popular in Sweden. O’Learys first televised the Super Bowl in 1990, and many locations host Super Bowl parties today. Some of the pubs regularly show afternoon NFL and NHL games, (night ones are generally too late for Sweden, which is six hours ahead of Boston), and members of the Patriots Sweden fan club gather regularly to watch Pats games at one of the Gothenburg pubs.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, O’Learys has attracted attention from some of the athletes it pays homage to. Ray Bourque, Gerry Cheevers, and Doug Flutie are among those with Boston ties who have visited over the years. (Wayne Gretzky, Magic Johnson, and Bobby Hull have also come.) Bruins scouts are frequent visitors; in 2011, a Swedish scout brought the Stanley Cup to an O’Learys in Stockholm, where a Stanley Cup party was held.
“It’s a lot of fun; it’s a great sports bar,’’ says Ray Bourque, who met Reinholdsson through Michael Thelvén, a former Bruin from Sweden. “It’s so much fun to see so much Boston sports stuff on the walls in another country.’’
In the past 12 years, O’Learys has expanded rapidly through franchising. There are now pubs in 10 countries, many of them at airports. Some of the locations have gone beyond eating and televised sports and include bowling and miniature golf. Small adjustments have been made to meet local preferences — the menu in Hanoi, for instance, includes pho and other local dishes, while the pubs in Istanbul show more basketball than elsewhere. But the Boston theme and other core details remain the same.
Reinholdsson plans to open more locations in 2016, including Hong Kong, Beijing, and Belgium. (Anne O’Leary, the source of the name, left the company in 2004.) Yet there is one location particularly dear to his heart where he would also like to open: Boston. He is now looking for a New England-based partner, and thinks of opening restaurants throughout the region. They would have a few Swedish items on the menu, he says, to help to differentiate them from other local sports pubs. “In a way, it would be like coming home,’’ he says.
Ami Albernaz can be reached at ami.albernaz@gmail.com.