RetroReview: S4419 Copper Face Jacks

I've been here three times, which was three times too many.

I can confirm that you don't have to be heterosexual to end up The Shifting Wall here; or a nurse/Garda for that matter, but I did have to affect far more of a Donegal accent than I ever have normally.

Beyond its reputation for country nurses, GAA finalists and the shifting wall; the most interesting thing about here is how much money the cloakroom makes. This figure used to pop up in media reports, as it was once separated out in financial reports. The last figure I can find is receipts of 217k in 2011

N0283 The Carlyan

An extremely difficult to spell pub, my brain constantly thinking it should be Carl Ryan or similar.

The interior here is somehow incredibly familar to me despite never having been here before - a small older pub building to the front, with a long, low, extension out the back holding the lounge and a games area.

I can't identify any specific pub that looks basically the same as this, but I just know it has to be a common enough layout. The long building isn't quite wide enough to have been a dance hall; and I may be confusing it with somewhere that was clearly a dance hall tacked to the side of a pub. But it just seems weirdly famililar.

The pub wasn't hugely busy for its size, but there were enough customers there for the single bar staff member that was on to be kept active. 

December 2024 Register Update

Not a big list of changes this month:

New:

1021705 Porters, Camden Street - new pub in a former bookies

Re-added:

S4354 Fujiyama, Dundrum Town Centre - the former TGI Fridays / Dante's Pizza unit re-opened in July but didn't appear til now

RetroReview: S3781 NoLIta

A pub I've spent many, many hours in - but only a very few in its current incarnation, at a work party of some description that I now can't remember. 

However, as The Dragon I spent probably every second weekend here for the guts of two years. And I can't remember much of those, either; but for very different reasons...

Slotting in to a place in the market for gay bars that possibly doesn't really exist anymore, the crowd here was younger than most places but also not targeting students - except on the specific student nights. 

A former bank, this was converted to to a pub in ~2000 - initially SoSuMe, which was fire damaged in 2005; then The Dragon, and briefly a bonkers "Scandinavian Asian" bar called Soder+Ko before its latest conversion to NoLIta.

What was a very interesting premises got replaced by a generic cocktails-and-pizza place; which might do better for its owners - and certainly eliminated the internal competition with The George under the same ownership - but just isn't of interest for me to go back.

N0281 The Strand

Moving on from the more traditional pubs, we get Rush's (first) example of the more modern type of food-led pub - the lounge having full table service, and indeed most empty tables were marked as reserved. I was able to locate a table, however.

Another case of a pint not available occured here, but it was Hope Pass If You Can that I couldn't get, rather than Smithwicks, 'forcing' me to have lager twice in a row, this time Hope's Underdog pilsner - a much superior product to what I had to reduce myself to before!