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why are there no J D Wetherspoon pubs in ROI?

dd972

You'd think with the boozing culture we have they'd have colonised our town and cities some time ago, plus costwise they'd annihilate the opposition paying through the nose for their Guinness and Heineken.

Only heard bit and bobs of rumour as to why there's no Spoon pubs here ranging from the fact that it's in the Eurozone and it doesn't fit in with their business plan and the Victuallers Association here are keeping them out by some means or other, anybody heard anything more substantial?

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homerjay2005

anncoates wrote: »

Some of the arguments against JDW in this country are almost scripted by Diageo and VFI.

are there people actually saying this is a bad thing???

f*cking hell, this is exactly what this country needs - and alternate choice and value for money.

if people arent happy with what they offer, they should just keep their mouth shut and go elsewhere! ive had 3 nights out there already and will be back there in the next week or two to try out their steaks.

Larbre34

At the moment there is no Dun Laoghaire nightlife so anything would be an improvement.

Links234

homerjay2005 wrote: »

are there people actually saying this is a bad thing???

Yeah there are, people saying "oh it won't beat the atmosphere of a proper Irish pub"

Which, to be fair, it won't. When I'm over in the UK, I avoid Wetherspoons because I find them like drinking in a Starbucks, but the fact that we so seriously, deeply need the competition to the vintners ****e, I'm welcoming them. the market seriously needs a good shake up.

leeroybrown

I'd love to see the price competition that JDW could force in the Irish market but I don't see it happening. Ultimately the Irish property market will force them to re-evaluate their investment here. In the UK they generally don't compete for prime real estate which if they continue a similar policy here will start to exclude them from most pubs here. There already seems to be signs that they're cooling off on some of their potential investments here as the Dublin pub economy recovers a bit and the property market goes silly again. I suspect they'll actually give up and sell off their existing assets eventually if they can't hit a critical number of premises over the next couple of years.

branie2

I've eaten in two JD Wetherspoon pubs in England, and the food there is very good.

Flex

Me and a load of friends went down to Blackrock and had a few drinks there yesterday. Really enjoyed it, will go back again. Weird ordering 3 pints and getting change out of €10. I cant imagine theyre getting much cheaper prices from suppliers as it would cause other customers of those suppliers to in turn demand lower prices to match from those suppliers

Muahahaha wrote: »

You know what I was just wondering if Weatherspoons price reductions have been covered in the print media anywhere ? I haven't seen any reports on online news sites about it yet. €2.50 pints of Beamish and Heineken/Staropramen for €2.95 is bound to make JDW the cheapest beer to be found anywhere in Ireland. This is newsworthy news, not only because the such low pub prices are absolutely remarkable in the Irish context but its also newsworthy because it is set against a backdrop of the Vinters Federation lobbying the government hard to put an end to supermarkets selling cheap* booze because you know, those publicans are concerned about the health of the nation and the best way for them to help us through our drink problems is to have us drink in their premises where they can supervise us :rolleyes:

*off license beer in Ireland is NOT cheap, we are something like one of the most expensive in the EU for off sales. Politicans can label it as 'cheap' all they want but that doesn't make it so. We all know bottles of wine can be had in France for €3 upwards, I'm just back from hols in Italy -660ml bottles of Becks for 99c each, same thing would be €2.50 here. We pay insane prices for craft beers and apart from huge customs and exise duties on alcohol plus 23% VAT (highest in EU) the government also slapped a further €1 onto a bottle of wine in the last budget. We are taxed to fcuk on alcohol and it has got considerably worse in the last 10 years. I used to laugh at Scandanvian beer prices and think thank fcuk we aren't like them but these days I've come to the opinion that we have slowly but surely developed their level of taxation on alcohol, in Norway/Sweden/Finlands case it is a dollop of nanny statism but politicians there do actually have a genuine care for public health. Here the move is nothing more than the government and publicans trying their best to dip your pocket even more, all under the guise of public health.

Completely agree with this. Was shocked when I learned that ~65% of the price of spirits and wine that youd buy from a super market is tax, ie. bottle of Jameson is €29, €17 of that is tax. I enjoy whisk(e)y so found that unbelievable. As far as I know the tax on wine is closer to 70% of the total price, highest in the EU. Pint is around ~30% (I think), but the spirits and wines levels are disgusting

Anyone any idea what the price breakdown for a pint/measure/glass of wine is in a bar in terms of tax vs. the 'actual' charge by the bar?

RDM_83 again

Links234 wrote: »

Yeah there are, people saying "oh it won't beat the atmosphere of a proper Irish pub"

Which, to be fair, it won't. When I'm over in the UK, I avoid Wetherspoons because I find them like drinking in a Starbucks, but the fact that we so seriously, deeply need the competition to the vintners ****e, I'm welcoming them. the market seriously needs a good shake up.

I sort of agree but the thing about it is, who's actually the worst offenders for attaching a massive premium to their product.

Bars that are in tourist hotspots- this is never going to change every city is like it and as a % increase on the average price Dublin tourist traps aren't actually that bad (its just the average price is so high)

Bars that are late, have a good nightlife scene- again never going to change, look at a city like Barcelona, your paying basically Irish prices once it gets properly late.

Craft Beer pubs to my mind are the ones that really need to change, the initial product is more expensive than the mass market brews but the premium attached is huge in a lot of the Dublin Craft Brew pubs (Bull and Castle/Galway Bay brewery bars are great examples of this). Some of the ales sold can be picked up cheaper than mass market brews in their local areas in the UK yet they top 5.50/6 in these bars, thats not explainable by an increased cost of importation.*

Yet its those bars that seem to attract the least criticism in terms of their pricing model yet they are the ones that weatherspoons shows up for the rip-off merchants that they are.

*This is more Dublin specific, in Cork and Galway, being Crafty doesn't seem to have quite the same attitude of lets milk our customer base of every cent.

leeroybrown

RDM_83 again wrote: »

*This is more Dublin specific, in Cork and Galway, being Crafty doesn't seem to have quite the same attitude of lets milk our customer base of every cent.

As a Galway resident I'd say that the Galway Bay Brewery pubs do exactly the same as the do in Dublin except that they're capped by what the market will put up with. They're solely interested in making profit from the craft beer market. If Galway had €5.50 Heineken craft beer would start at €5.50. Galway Bay Brewery are pretty much the worst offender. Their own locally brewed beers are more expensive by the bottle in pubs or off licenses purely because of the premium they think they can get away with attaching to it.

scurnane

leeroybrown wrote: »

I'd love to see the price competition that JDW could force in the Irish market but I don't see it happening. Ultimately the Irish property market will force them to re-evaluate their investment here. In the UK they generally don't compete for prime real estate which if they continue a similar policy here will start to exclude them from most pubs here. There already seems to be signs that they're cooling off on some of their potential investments here as the Dublin pub economy recovers a bit and the property market goes silly again. I suspect they'll actually give up and sell off their existing assets eventually if they can't hit a critical number of premises over the next couple of years.

I wonder are they intending to branch outside of Dublin where the pub economy is slower to recover? I heard recently that Wetherspoons had bought (or in the process of buying) a property in Bishopstown, Cork. They would really do well from the college social life there!

[Deleted User]

Flex wrote: »

Me and a load of friends went down to Blackrock and had a few drinks there yesterday. Really enjoyed it, will go back again. Weird ordering 3 pints and getting change out of €10. I cant imagine theyre getting much cheaper prices from suppliers as it would cause other customers of those suppliers to in turn demand lower prices to match from those suppliers

Completely agree with this. Was shocked when I learned that ~65% of the price of spirits and wine that youd buy from a super market is tax, ie. bottle of Jameson is €29, €17 of that is tax. I enjoy whisk(e)y so found that unbelievable. As far as I know the tax on wine is closer to 70% of the total price, highest in the EU. Pint is around ~30% (I think), but the spirits and wines levels are disgusting

Anyone any idea what the price breakdown for a pint/measure/glass of wine is in a bar in terms of tax vs. the 'actual' charge by the bar?

Quick calculation by me says it's 15.75c for each percent in the beer including VAT. So your typical 4.3% pint will be 67.74c tax. If you're paying a fiver then there's another 80.8c of VAT so out of the fiver a total of about 1.48 is tax.
However selling at €2.50 means that the total tax will be about €1.01.

Links234

RDM_83 again wrote: »

Craft Beer pubs to my mind are the ones that really need to change, the initial product is more expensive than the mass market brews but the premium attached is huge in a lot of the Dublin Craft Brew pubs (Bull and Castle/Galway Bay brewery bars are great examples of this). Some of the ales sold can be picked up cheaper than mass market brews in their local areas in the UK yet they top 5.50/6 in these bars, thats not explainable by an increased cost of importation.*

Yet its those bars that seem to attract the least criticism in terms of their pricing model yet they are the ones that weatherspoons shows up for the rip-off merchants that they are.

I haven't been in the Bull and Castle in years, so I can't really comment on their pricing, but as far as the Galway Bay pubs go I find them reasonable enough. Their own brews are all under the €5 mark, and they've often got specials on bottled stuff, not so long ago we were drinking bottles of Kwak for €4 which was awesome. Cask is always €5, which isn't bad considering I'd been drinking pints of Jaipur on cask there and in O'Briens offies they were charging more than that for a bottle of Jaipur! I tend to think people judge them by whatever their most expensive products are, which can often be some crazy high % stuff.

That said, I don't disagree with you in general because while craft beer may have been just a small niche a while ago, it's pretty much exploded since people have been given more choice. We're getting the choice, now I hope we can get a little more competitivity in pricing.

Also, Wetherspoons are bringing over a lot of great English stuff that you often don't see in a lot of craft places, like Adnams etc, whereas a lot of what you see in usual craft places are American stuff like Sierra Nevada, O'Dells, Founders, etc, which can be quite pricey. I do love them, the Founders porter is just downright incredible, but getting the English ales too is a bonus.

Another problem I think there is, is that there's an awful lot of crap parading itself as 'craft' these days. I'd spotted some crap called McGrath's in Supervalu a while back, decided to give them a go, and god damn they were awful. Noticed them in a few pubs as part of their 'craft' selection.

But honestly? I'd hope we'd get a couple more UK chains over here at some point

leeroybrown

scurnane wrote: »

I wonder are they intending to branch outside of Dublin where the pub economy is slower to recover? I heard recently that Wetherspoons had bought (or in the process of buying) a property in Bishopstown, Cork. They would really do well from the college social life there!

They are. I know they've been looking at one particular premises in Galway. No idea how far thar has gone though. Their business model requires scale to work. Even with their huge UK size being here will only work long term if they get a large number of pubs.

VinLieger

Was in there Friday night and had a great night! Food was for that price absolutely fine and there's no getting around getting 4 pints of decent beer for a tenner is ****ing fantastic. Atmosphere was great, no tv's to distract conversation or loud obnoxious music blaring so you can't hear a word. Place was rammed and people were enjoying themselves.

Diageo and the vintners need to wake the fvck up cus wetherspoons are gonna take the country by storm and now ive realised how much we've been getting screwed I have absolutely no problem with it.

raymann

every spoon is different in the uk, all based around where it is. in bristol the ones in clifton are beautiful old buildings full of young professionals and the ones in bedminster have people waiting outside at 9am to start drinking straight away. this is the same all over the uk, the location decides the clientele, which sets the tone for the place. this will be exactly the same in ireland.

what is consistent is ridiculously cheap food and drink and generally good use of interesting old buildings. people moaning about the food is also crazy, irish pub food at that price is certainly not consistently better, something you would think reading some of the responses in this thread. at those prices its consistently worse.

lets face it this crowd seem more likely to revive the dying irish pub scene than kill it off.

Whisko

Two new Wetherspoons opening in Belfast as well. One up by Botanic and one in central Belfast.

They seem to be making their move on Ireland. I wonder if the other English chains will follow suit.

BetterThanThou

I haven't had a chance to visit here, but I can honestly say it seems like heaven to me. Cheap food, cheap drink, no loud music that you have to shout over, seems like a great place. You might argue it's not very original and doesn't have much character, but most Irish pubs don't either, they're all practically clones of each other. And after a few drinks, no one is really going to care anyway. Seems like a great place for a piss up, especially if you don't want to spend too much money, if you're a bar connoisseur, it's probably not going to be your cup of tea, but for the average person, this seems like a great place, a place to have a few drinks and some food without regretting the amount of money you spent the day after. I personally can't wait till the Dun Laoghaire pub opens, which I can get to a lot easier, I can see myself visiting the place semi-regularly once it opens.

Satriale

BetterThanThou wrote: »

I haven't had a chance to visit here, but I can honestly say it seems like heaven to me. Cheap food, cheap drink, no loud music that you have to shout over, seems like a great place. You might argue it's not very original and doesn't have much character, but most Irish pubs don't either, they're all practically clones of each other. And after a few drinks, no one is really going to care anyway. Seems like a great place for a piss up, especially if you don't want to spend too much money, if you're a bar connoisseur, it's probably not going to be your cup of tea, but for the average person, this seems like a great place, a place to have a few drinks and some food without regretting the amount of money you spent the day after. I personally can't wait till the Dun Laoghaire pub opens, which I can get to a lot easier, I can see myself visiting the place semi-regularly once it opens.

Definitely sounds good, my last regular local used to have me sat at the bar between two tvs, one with sky sports blaring, the other with some english soap opera screeching, and a draught skinning my back through the open front door and out the open back door.
The barman of course would be too busy to fill a pint cause he'd be warming his hole at the only open fire, cause the heating was turned off(too expensive). He couldnt hear me anyway with the noise of the radio.:(

suicide_circus

Went in again last week. The main issue I have with the one in Blackrock is the seats. Absolutely rock hard. Now I dont want a marshmallow type sofa but the thing is they look like very comfy chairs so you plonk yourself down only to realise they used granite to stuff the upholstery. Can't fault much else, the prices are phenomenal, really highlights the rip off culture of irish publicans. The staff were somewhat spaced out.

mfceiling

scurnane wrote: »

I wonder are they intending to branch outside of Dublin where the pub economy is slower to recover? I heard recently that Wetherspoons had bought (or in the process of buying) a property in Bishopstown, Cork. They would really do well from the college social life there!

I'm currently working on the one in dun laoighre and yes the next one is cork. Same fit out team that did Blackrock. They really concentrate on the fit out and there is great expense on the interior.

We've been told that there is another 10 to be done after this one!!

partyguinness

There is defo a market in Dublin CC. I dont see it killing off the 'traditional' Irish bar they are worlds apart.

dd972

Deleted User wrote: »

Quick calculation by me says it's 15.75c for each percent in the beer including VAT. So your typical 4.3% pint will be 67.74c tax. If you're paying a fiver then there's another 80.8c of VAT so out of the fiver a total of about 1.48 is tax.
However selling at €2.50 means that the total tax will be about €1.01.