S4253 The Flying Duck (Harvey Nichols)

Shopping centre number four - the Dundrum Town Centre - and not the pub I was intending to go to initially. There is a branch of the Musgrave-owned Donnybrook Fair supermarket chain here which holds a full pub licence, covering its restaurant and off-licence. The restaurant closes at 4. 

It was about 4:05 when I arrived, and it was very, very closed.

But that is not the only pub in the centre (by any means - there's six licences of varying types here) and not the only one I hadn't visited either. Another I had yet to visit is the often closed, frequently rebranded 'restaurant' in Harvey Nichols

The current incarnation of this is the Flying Duck, run as part of a chain by actor and publican Gary Whelan, of S0120 Whelans fame. However, a few days prior to me turning up in Dundrum, Gary's two other Duck pubs had closed and called creditors meetings. One of these, S0281 Dalkey Duck, reopened immediately (as in hours) after said creditors meeting, but the 1014978 Wild Duck is still closed. But the Flying Duck was unaffected by this.

Now, this may entirely be down to the time I visited, but I have to wonder if the Flying version of the ducks will also be affected at some point, as I was the only customer in the entire pub the entire time I was there. Which was about 40 minutes, on a busy Saturday.

Harvey Nicks had plenty of customers, when I went out through it. S4289 PMacs on the ground floor of the shopping centre had plenty of customers. There was nothing wrong with my cocktail, or with the polite staff, or the pleasant surroundings, or the copious signage (including, as far as I remember, duck webbed foot print stickers up the staircase although maybe they were just normal footprints) telling you the bar was there.

My Manhattan was fine and reasonably priced for where we were. I do hope this place gets more customers at other times.

Also, despite the Avios rules for Harvey Nicks spending specifically excluding all bars, restaurants and cafes, I got 4 Avios per euro on top of the one per four I normally get. I think this may be the only Avios-earning bar in the entire country.