S0220 The Lansdowne Hotel / The Den

I've taken a few goes to tick off the Baggot Street area pubs, and yet somehow forgot that this hotel bar should have been considered as one of those - particularly as it has a reputation as a "rugby pub" despite not being a standalone pub.

Accessed directly from the carpark at the front of the hotel, the bar fills the not-very-underground basement level of the two townhouses that the hotel is formed from; and manages to feel a little bit more like a "normal" pub than a hotel bar, extensively due to never interacting with the hotel facilities. This is the case with most of the city centre hotel bars that people do not consider (or realise) to be hotel bars; and is why I do count hotel bars for ticking purposes. 

By finally visiting the Lansdowne, I finish off the mini-chain of pubs owned by Mick Quinn, and formerly also his brother Frank - the others being Toners, The 51 and The Waterloo

Revisited Pubs September 2024

Bit late remembering to do this one this month; but its all the same ones as usual, with one old regular reappearing, and one maybe new regular popping up:

1015462 Rubys, Point Village - back in the area ticking somewhere else that didn't have quite as appealing food, writeup to come.
N0002 Brew Dock, Amiens Street - on the way back to the train
N0083 McGraths, Drumcondra - beside the train station (different station)
N0063 Cumiskeys, Dominick Street - its on the Luas line back to my train (another different station)
S0077 Nearys, Chatham Street - my meeting that was moved from The Well closing is now trying here as its new location
S4236 RDS, Merrion Road - or was I? Considering the Dublin Beer Festival setup is run by Madigans from the bar/payment side of things, I think it may actually be an temporary event extension of one of their pub licences and not a use of the stadium licence... RetroReview writeup of the stadium is to come
N0084 The Black Sheep - I needed food after the awful new pub I'd ticked just before this, writeup to come soon
N0097 Underdog - well, it'd be rude not to when it's right there - I really need to do a new writeup here as the Beerhouse one is 8 years old!

N2398 Crowne Plaza Dublin Airport

This was the closest unvisited pin to work for ages, just because the opportunity never arose - but with a few hours to kill in North County Dublin, I popped in here for dinner.

Which wasn't great. Service was extremely polite but a tad under-trained/under-experienced too, so an upgrade is needed all around.

There aren't a lot of pubs in this area, and the hotel does advertise the bar to visitors; so I expect it does get a bit of trade from that; as well as from the hotel itself and its neighbouring Holiday Inn Express that I suspect doesn't have its own bar.

RetroReview: S3055 Fleet Street Inn / Buskers

I once had to drag an English stag party I was meeting up with - I knew one of the group and was asked to basically be their tour guide - out of here, and make them get rid of their Carrolls purchased leprechaun wigs.

I'm not sure if that's the entire clientele here, but on the other visit (where I actually drank something, hence ticked), there was plenty of those too; and that was on a winter weeknight rather than a late summer weekend. They do specifically advertise for hen and stag parties, something many other premises balk at.

For the domestic customer, there's an sports focus here, with the "Buskers On The Ball" secondary branding specifically covering this part of the pub.

N0354 O'Dwyers Golf Links Inn

Just before going in here, I was told on Twitter that it has a local nickname - The Widows - and that under no circumstances am I to accidentally say it to any of the members of staff.

There was one member of staff who did seem a bit frosty (the titular Widow perhaps) but otherwise, all fine and I didn't let my tongue slip.

A 60s pub, possibly the first in the village - outer areas of Dublin are very hard to trace the pub history of, so I wouldn't be surprised if there had been other pubs that have since closed - O'Dwyers has been recently renovated and has a very large restaurant area alongside the main bar areas.

I had dinner here, and due to what I found out was an error rather than a food choice, was served a gravy boat of actual gravy with my burger and chips. And extremely good gravy it was too - presumably made with the juices from the carvery joints - but it was meant to be pepper sauce. I'm not sure if I'd have preferred it to have been a bold new frontier in taste.

I managed to leave a hoody behind here, one I wore a lot, but which was very much starting to show its age. Not worth going back for it, considering Portmarnock is actually a bit of a pain to get to; I've bought its replacement now - so for the next three years or so my pints ticking hoody will be light grey, not black-increasingly-fading-to-dark grey.

RetroReview: S3053 Cafe En Seine

I've been here quite a few times, all over eight years ago and significantly before its big refit; so I can't tell you what it's like now at all. And I can barely remember much of what it was.

This was a semi-common going away party location in a previous job, one where the company would pay for an absolutely heap of drinks - the CEO, at my own one, pointed out that he did find this rather odd; which certainly won't have helped.

I also went to one of a number of the modern equivalents of "american wakes" that I had to attend from ~2008-14 here; that one for Australia. The couple in question are now back in Ireland, and owning a house by huge assistance of WFH allowing them to get away from Dublin; but unfortunately there's still a few friends that went to Australia or Canada back then that have not, and may not return... but anyway.

This is quite a big pub, although people sometimes seem to think its even bigger than it is. It was one of the first modern "superpubs" in Dublin, and also the first in an occasionally identified trend of "design pubs", or other similar terms; these being premises on which a significant amount of money had been spent on the fitout and theming. 

The theme here was, as you might guess from the name, Parisian; 1920s initially - I'm not sure what it's like now, as mentioned in the first paragraph. Extensive theming like this is less common on new or refurbished pubs now; but expensive fitouts are now the norm - something I'm sure lots of publicans curse these 1990s superpubs for introducing!

RetroReview: S3250 Brooks Hotel

My one visit here was to drop in to celebrate with two friends who had just got engaged the night before.

Oddly enough when I happened to mention this recently, on their 8th wedding anniversary (the visit was that long ago); they had no memory of it. Possibly a tad too much bubbly was had by all!