S2119 Captain Americas

An opportunistic visit here - I had an hour to kill in the Grafton Street area for a late lunch and it was either here or the TGI Fridays on Stephens Green as options. Long-term readers of the blog (both of you) will know my experiences with TGI Fridays; so I decided to try something different this time

I'd actually been to a pub-licenced Captain America's before - in Tallaght - but it has since closed down. At the time, the food was fairly disappointing, mid-2000s style over substance stuff. So I still wasn't expecting much.

This is the original of the chain, approaching 50 years in business; and is now part of the Press Up Group of hotels, bars and restaurants. It has had a pub licence for as long as I can remember, possibly all the way back to its opening day. It's one of the few pubs in Dublin that are entirely (staircase excepted) above the ground floor - the only other one I can think of right now is another Press Up premises, Robertas.

In 1971, an American-style burger joint was quite exciting in Dublin, particularly if it had the pub licence from day one. There's quite a bit of history on display, from genuine early U2 memorabilia all the way down to old menus which are now historical artefacts themselves.

It really isn't much of a place to just go and drink - I'm not sure if you could when it was busy even - and the range of drinks is quite limited. The food, however, was significantly better than I was expecting.

I would suggest the Cashel Blue in the Bacon & Blue burger needs to spend some time on top of the meat on the grill, but otherwise I was pleasantly surprised with something superior to what I would have got in TGIs anyway.