Peter Nikolakopoulos, owner of the Newburyport-based food truck Beefie Boys, had never served smiley fries before.But in the scramble to prepare a special menu for a mystery client—who turned out to be Ed Sheeran, the superstar singer/songwriter behind hits like “Shape of You” and “Bad Habits”—Nikolakopoulos found himself ordering McCain Smiles frozen mashed potato shapes to plate up alongside fish and chips, sliders, and grilled cheese sandwiches.
“Ed Sheeran wanted his favorite fries,” Nikolakopoulos says. “So we had to track those down.”
On the final Friday of March, Sheeran descended on Ipswich to film the music video for “Old Phone.” (Sheeran is from near Ipswich, England, and he’s a minority owner of the Ipswich Town Football Club.) The song is a nostalgic single inspired by the musician’s experience powering up a decade-old device and scrolling through long lost text messages from dead friends, ex-lovers, and estranged family members. Sheeran spent the day visiting shops and interacting with locals, and Sheeran’s team erected a pop-up tavern called “The Old Phone.” People were asked to send their own old text messages to a special number, and dozens of lucky fans were chosen to experience the pub throughout the day, with around 100 people treated to a two-hour set by Sheeran in the evening.
“They only had two beers that they served at the pub,” Gary Rogers, founder of the Ipswich brewery True North Ale Company, notes with pride. “One of them was Guinness, and the other one was our beer. So it was an interesting mix.”
The True North brew was Cerveza Mexican Lager, a light-bodied beer that has received medals from the Great American Beer Festival and the North American Brewers Association. When Rogers learned of the event just a few days before Sheeran’s visit, he contacted Sophia Zarsky, a producer with the New York-based production agency MKG, to suggest that The Old Phone pub serve his beer. Coincidentally, Zarsky had already sampled it at a local bar.
“Knowing a little bit about the popularity of Ed Sheeran, I figured it was going to be an epic event for the town,” says Rogers, who sent in an old text message of his own, but wasn’t chosen to visit the pub. “We’re the brewery here in town, and if you’re building a pub, we’d like to have our beer be a part of it. It’s just serendipity that they chose our beer.”
“The whole thing was kind of surreal,” Rogers adds. “Ed Sheeran was going from place to place and playing—jumping up on the back of a pickup truck and playing with the middle school kids.”
Zarsky, who is originally from Newton, spent weeks quietly procuring the necessary permits for the event and lining up vendors. “I was so grateful to all the support that we got from the town—the police department, the fire department, everyone in Town Hall,” she says.
Cat Garcia-Menocal is creative director with Pink Sparrow, the New York firm that oversaw the design and build of the pop-up tavern. Workers installed the temporary pub in just a few days—and took it down even more quickly—creating an ephemeral, moment-in-time experience for both Sheeran and his fans. The fresh build, Garcia-Menocal explains, allowed Pink Sparrow to create an intimate performance space, without having to rely on the potentially subpar lighting and sight lines of an existing bar.
“Being in Ipswich felt right,” Garcia-Menocal says. “It really captured the feeling of the small-town, homegrown talent that has gone global. [Sheeran] told his management team that this was the coolest thing he’s ever been a part of, which is pretty high praise.”
During lulls in service, Nikolakopoulos got a chance to take in Sheeran’s performance, and the musician visited the food truck at the end of the night to take photos with staff. “It was like being on a movie set,” he says. “He played for hours. It was pretty incredible.” Nikolakopoulos plans to keep smiley fries on the Beefie Boys menu. “We’ll probably keep them with the grilled cheese, because that was pretty popular,” he says. “We’re going to have an Ed Sheeran special.”
