Man your pumps, Wetherspoons are coming

ClashCityRocker

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117838954#Comment_117838954

Martin/Wethespoons come in for criticism in the UK also, i think its unfair to paint any criticism here as some sort of anti Brit agenda

Whipping Boy

Was in there last night and had a great experience - staff attentive, service prompt, food well received across the board and, of course, all for a price that feels ridiculous. Hard to believe we were paying €3.95 for a G&T smack bang in the middle of town.

We actually had a space booked in a different spot down the road but they had planned to kick us out after 105 minutes for some reason so we jumped ship. Will definitely be back

BeerNut

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117840439#Comment_117840439

The docklands one now has the official name of The South Strand.

Speak Now

Waterford one will be called The Arundel Gate. 

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117839595#Comment_117839595

I've never been to any of the Irish venues but if they are the same style as the UK ones I wouldn't be to bothered going.

I hate that big open room, lights up full, echoey ambiance that you get it a lot of English pubs. When you do go to a good pub in London everyone raves about it but then are far to happy to accept mediocrity from most of them

L1011

The Blackrock one is up for sale

Black Sheep

I haven't been in Blackrock in years, but it was never a drinking town or a destination when I worked there (Not in the way Dun Laoghaire or Dalkey were, where you'd have people coming from Stillorgan, Shankill and locally). It's been 15+ years but there was a daytime crowd at lunch and then in the evening it was locals, and yes, I can see how a Wetherspoons might not have been the best fit.

Cloudio9

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117839595#Comment_117839595

I'd much rather wander around an English city visiting different pubs than doing the same in Ireland. I'm going to encounter much better food and drink options.

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117845915#Comment_117845915

Different pubs ?

The problem in England is every town is just a Spoons a Greene King and some form of a Mitchell and Butlers, same goes for the chain restaurants. I was shocked when I travelled outside London and found cities twice the size of Limerick with half the choice.

BeerNut

Blackrock never seemed as busy as Dún Laoghaire or Blanchardstown, and certainly not as busy as Abbey Street. I reckon it was an experiment and what they've learned is that big is the way to go. Now that the admin office can move to Camden Street they can offload that and reinvest the couple of million elsewhere. I wonder if they'll do the same in Cork: I'd be surprised if The Linen Weaver is paying its way.

Muahahaha

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117845691#Comment_117845691

I always thought Blackrock was a bizarre decision, they put a pub with Irelands cheapest alcohol prices into one of Irelands weathiest suburbs. And as you say it was never a big drinking town. It was like someone in the UK threw a dart at a map of Dublin and it landed on Blackrock and they went with that.

Ive only ever been in it during the daytime but its always be pretty quiet, maybe 50 people in the shop at best. It wouldnt surprise me if they sold it off at some stage as I doubt it is doing all that well

the beer revolu

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117845915#Comment_117845915

I also don't buy into the tired old narrative of "English pubs bad", "Irish pubs, good".

It's just not true, in my experience. Most Irish pubs are just as shlte as most English pubs, as far as I'm concerned. Pubs that I really like are few and far between in both countries.

listermint

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117846173#Comment_117846173

Nah to be fair over arching majority of English pubs are pretty dire.

jakiah

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117846009#Comment_117846009

What choice are you getting in Ireland? The vast majority of pubs pour the same beer, have similar decor, if they have food the menus are the same tired options (**** lasagne & shite burgers, its not 1989 anymore lads), they all have TVs, they all show poxy sport. Outside the main cities in Ireland if youve been to one pub youve been to them all. Theres way more variety in UK pubs (though many are truly awful). And the irony is that Wetherspoons, with its cask and import keg options actually widens the choice for people who like beer here. Having spent some time in regional Irish towns during the pandemic if I never see another pub with only Guinness & Heineken options it will be too soon.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117845915#Comment_117845915

Nah, English pubs are completely soulless. Light years behind ours.

Beechwoodspark

yeah, the wetherspoons experience as such, is not great in terms of pub “atmosphere”

Black Sheep

To be honest the number of genuinely good pubs, in terms of food and drink and atmosphere, is similar in both countries, I would have thought. I don't think either country can be said to have a significant advantage.

I agree with the comments that most country / provincial town Irish pubs are soul-less and "by the numbers" just as much as any high street UK pub chain. Yes, there are amazing pubs in Ireland, but I think there's a national hubris that assumes we automatically have more craic than foreigners in their pubs. In some pubs yes, but a lot of places are phoning it in.

Totally agree on the pub food menus BTW.

Muahahaha

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117846173#Comment_117846173

yeah would agree with this. You'll find some cracking pubs in both countries but also some absolute dives as well. I think there was a time about 10-15 years back when the service was generally far better in Irish pubs than the UK because they hired actual barmen. I remember one regular haunt and you could nod at the barmen 15 metres across the room and they would send down your next round of pints from memory of the previous order. Now they've McDonaldised the job and its more likely to be a student on minimum wage who struggles to pull a good pint and wont remember what you ordered 30 minutes previous. The wages Irish publicans pay their staff have gone down meaning service levels have gone down, all the while the prices of drink have kept going up.

Was in a pub there a couple of weeks back with five mates and at the end of the night one of them remarked about how we had dropped over 250 euro in the till over the course of the evening yet when you went into the jacks it was manky dirty and there was no soap and no hot water out of the tap. Its incredible to think that even given the prices they're charging publicans would still begrudge you a bit of soap and hot water. Yet it is common enough in a good few Irish pubs.

Not all Irish pubs are like that, many are spotlessly clean and run very well. But the dives with sticky carpets do exist here just as they exist in the UK. When I lived in London locally we had a Spoons and Greene King both of which were dives. But we also had another 3 pubs locally that were great places to drink, real friendly community type pubs that hadnt changed in decades. So to me you get a mix of both types of pub in the UK but you can get that here just as much as well.

jakiah

If you cant find good pubs in England you really arent looking hard enough. Agree there is better service generally in Irish pubs. But ask your average Irish barman a question (any question) about beer and he'll look at you like youve two heads.

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117846524#Comment_117846524

I looked very hard and in a lot of cities it was pretty awful. I know plenty of Irish pubs are crap and the publican doesn't really try with the beer but at least it's his pub and you are not going from town to town from Spoons to Spoons. Even the well run pubs in England I can't warm to as they are too big, bright and open usually.

I don't mind the idea of having a Spoons mixed in with the other pubs in an Irish city but I would hate to be at the point where it's all Spoons and All Bar One like the UK.

Pauliedragon

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117846524#Comment_117846524

I think a lot of that is down to being thrown straight in behind the bar. I was picking up glasses on weekends when I was 16 (41 now) so was eased into it. By the time I was trained up for the bar I already had the basics so learning more was easier.

the beer revolu

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117846330#Comment_117846330

Because there's only one model for English pubs? They're all the same?

Yup, the tired old, prejudiced, trope is alive and well.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117848722#Comment_117848722

Every opinion that’s ever been posted on this website has to have a certain amount of ‘in general’ attached to it. The silly little argument of “but you haven’t been in every pub in England!!” is childish.

Black Sheep

Aside from working in London, I've done many, many weekend breaks and extended holidays in the UK, but probably like a lot of Irish people that funnels you towards particular destinations... London, Bristol, Brighton, Bath, Manchester, Liverpool, Newcastle, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Cardiff... Or maybe smaller areas of natural beauty that have little villages with nice pubs. Basically, either significant enough cities or tourist areas. Those places are going to either have a selection of pubs great enough that some of them are going to be crackers, or in the case of some of the tourist spots that standard is just quite high in general, a lot of money circulating.

Have to say though that my perspective on the UK changed slightly when I had to do a bit of a road trip / multiple visits to smaller UK towns and cities in recent years. I was visiting places that the typical Irish person just wouldn't go near unless there was a work or family connection. A lot of them more insular and down at the heel than I'd expected, maybe even moreso than some provincial Irish towns that we think are in difficulty. One that stands out to me was Aldershot, which is "the home of the British army". For a place that has some many current and former servicemen in the area, it is really depressingly dilapidated. Shuttered businesses everywhere, not particularly safe after dark, and from what I saw the Wetherspoons was the 'best' pub in the area from a craft beer point of view. A lot of the places like this that I'm talking about were the same, it was the stereotype of the run down town centre, with the same high street shops as every other town, and little else.

I stand by my earlier post that Ireland and the UK are more similar than not in terms of pub quality, but, yeah, I guess I also wanted to acknowledge that holidaying or doing city breaks in the UK is not the full reality of the place at the same time.

Muahahaha

One that stands out to me was Aldershot, which is "the home of the British army". For a place that has some many current and former servicemen in the area, it is really depressingly dilapidated. Shuttered businesses everywhere, not particularly safe after dark, and from what I saw the Wetherspoons was the 'best' pub in the area from a craft beer point of view. 

I might be wrong but Ive always gotten the impression that towns associated with the army where alot of serving and ex servicemen live tend to be depressing places. I think one of the factors is that a sizeable part of the population can be away with the army for months on end which contributes to high streets with shuttered businesses. Army wages are low as well so there isnt loads of money sloshing around the local economy, a lot of army families are just surviving financially so you wont find lots of fancy restaurants or nice hotels.

They can also suffer anti social problems because there can be thousands of families whose mothers are raising children more or less on their own. The housing estates servicemens families live in can be like something out of east Belfast in the 70's, I think they get the houses for free or very cheap rent but it shows in the streetscapes. And whatever pubs are in the town are going to be dives because soldiers dont mind rough and ready drinking dens, Id say they actually seek them out.

Still interesting that Aldershot is in Hampshire which is a wealthy area. When you described it I just assumed it would be somewhere in the north of England. But its only up the road from Woking in Surrey which is a wealthy area and the home of McLaren Mercedes where theres 4,000 people employed in automotive engineering who are manufacturing Formula 1 and supercars. But Id guess that towns like Aldershot that are heavily dependent on the army for the local economy are more than likely going to be depressing dumps.

loyatemu

Three Tun Tavern is now for sale:

https://www.irishtimes.com/business/commercial-property/jd-wetherspoon-seeking-2-5m-for-south-dublin-pub-1.4667353

mfceiling

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117848928#Comment_117848928

So you've been to every pub in Ireland to claim that we have better pubs than them?

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117871168#Comment_117871168

Yeah that’s just as stupid an argument to make.

jakiah

So I went to Wetherspoons Keavans Port at the weekend. A really nice layout and you can see how much investment theyve plowed into it, its huge! It was very busy with a mixed crowd of older folks and quite young groups. Security well on top of things, no unsavory characters at all. Service via the app was really quick. Unfortunately, all five of the casks were sour, my group was literally the only people drinking Real Ale (I walked around and checked). All in all I enjoyed the visit, the fabled 'atmosphere' was just as good as any other generic city centre pub you might visit. I cannot see why your Heineken/vodka & tonic drinkers would want to sit in The Bleeding Horse across the road paying 50% or more extra per drink. If the Ale wasn't such a disaster I'd certainly go back.

The Nal

Do any of them have music playing here?