The series centers on George O'Grady, a taxi cab driver living in New York City. The show, for the most part, took place in The Moylan Bar, run by bartender Jack Donahue. The setting's real-life basis was the now-defunct Moylan Tavern, a younger Carlin's neighborhood bar on Broadway between La Salle Street and Tiemann Place in the Morningside Heights neighborhood, and owned by the grandparents of film critic and author Maitland McDonagh.