A Grand design

A Grand design

Rachel Eastwood has been working in the licensing trade for most of her life. Best known as the licensee of Derry’s Grand Central Bar, she’s been telling LCN about the challenges to date and her plans for the future…

Derry publican, Rachael Eastwood, was briefly in the news during the summer when she took over the lease on Gerry McCloskey’s former Monico bar in Custom House Street and converted it into the city’s first craft beer and cocktail venue.

But The Guildhall Taphouse wasn’t Rachel’s first foray into the licensed trade. In fact, the 32-year-old mother-of-one has been steadily building her hospitality credentials since her early teens.

These days, she’s better known locally as the licensee at the city’s iconic Grand Central on the Strand Road, which she revived and re-opened in 2013. But Rachel’s association with hospitality goes back much further than that.

A native of Coleraine, she cut her teeth in the profession during her early teens, working in a succession of bars around the popular north coast area.

When she was 17, the course of Rachel’s career briefly threatened to veer away from the bar trade. Her parents decided on a move to Greencastle in Co. Donegal and Rachel reluctantly tagged along, eventually setting down roots in Derry where she began studying the performing arts.

To supplement her student income, Rachel turned once again to the licensed trade and took jobs in a number of Derry’s most popular bars, including stints in The Clarendon, The Gweedore and the former Bound for Boston.

After successfully completing her academic studies, Rachel was torn between leaving Derry to continue at university or staying where she was happiest:

“I was really undecided about going away,” she told LCN recently. “By this time, I was 19 and I’d got a full-time job in The Gweedore. And I was singing with a wedding band called Portobello, so I was doing quite well for myself, life was good and I was young. I kept saying to myself, I’ll go to university next year, but I never did.”

Eventually, she was approached by Billy Campbell, the owner and manager of Mason’s Bar in Magazine Street, another long-established venue with a good reputation for live music. Billy offered Rachel a job as manager at Mason’s and she accepted, staying on at the venue for the next couple of years.

Rachel will be known to some readers as the wife of Colm Eastwood, the leader of the SDLP. She met Colm – a live music fan – in Les Doherty’s acclaimed Waterloo Street bar, Bound for Boston, which shut its doors for good in 2014. She and Colm got married in Donegal in 2013 and they now have an 18-month-old daughter, Rosa Grace.

By this time, Rachel was interested in opening up in the trade on her own account and she knew that the Grand Central Bar wasn’t trading and was available for lease:

“It was Colm that convinced me I could make it on my own,” she recalls. “He said that if I could manage a bar for someone else for a pittance, then I could run one for myself.”

The elegant old bar – which is around a century old – had been closed for a few years when Rachel eventually secured the lease in November 2012. Notwithstanding that neglect, the premises weren’t in bad shape – the biggest problem was the lack of a heating system. One of Rachel’s first jobs was to install heating and once it was turned on, she says, the bar very quickly began to get its old character back.

“We just got the whole family in there with their Marigolds on and we gave the place a good scrubbing,” she says. “The place was neglected, it was run-down but it was really just dirty as you can imagine.”

One of the most striking aspects of the venue is the beautiful old wooden bar which Rachel believes was hand-carved many years ago by prisoners who were sent to the pub on a day-release scheme.

The Grand Central opened again in early December 2012:

“I couldn’t believe the buzz around its opening,” recalls the licensee. “A natural sort of interest had been growing, people had seen bodies about the place in the run-up and as soon as we opened, we were busy. It was a great time of year too, just before Christmas.

“The bar is cosy, it’s quaint and it’s one of those places that’s easy to fill, so it’s often packed and because people can’t get in, that creates more interest. It has a lovely look about it with the old 1920s windows and the live music is great.”

In fact, with live music in the bar six nights a week, The Grand Central now has a reputation as one of the city’s best live venues.

Not content with running two pubs, however, Rachel and Colm are also involved in brewing craft beer. Based in a unit on the Skeoge Industrial Estate in the city, the Dopey Dick Brewing Company currently produces a pale ale and a lager.

They bought the equipment for the brewery from Germany in the summer of last year and practised for a year before going into production. Colm’s father, Paul, is in charge of the operation.

“It was really Colm’s idea,” says Rachael. “He loves craft beer and we knew that it’s very popular in Derry and all over at the moment. The idea is that we’ll continue to take this forward and in time, do away with some of the other stuff in the bars in favour of our local brews.”

Rachel admits that with both parents living busy lives, it can be a little difficult at times to manage the work/life balance:

“We have a lot of help,” she says. “We have good staff, great managers, a good childminder and the thing is, Colm can be really busy maybe for three weeks, then he’ll be back at home with us, so we manage it between us and we make it work.”

Going forward, Rachael has no immediate plans for expansion, but she insists that “thinking outside the box” is essential in order to make the licensing trade viable in the current climate:

“You have to do it,” she adds. “There are so many bars in Derry now and more on the way. So you have to be running things like open mic nights, gin and whiskey nights, comedy nights and all the rest. Getting people in through the door, particularly through the week, has to be the objective.”

 

 

 

 

Tapping in to tradition

Rachael’s latest enterprise, The Guildhall Taphouse, which she opened in Custom House Street during the summer, should have its new kitchens open in good time for Christmas.

“We’ve not done food in here up until now, but a lot of people, particularly tourists, have been looking for something to eat,” explains Rachael. “So we’re going to be doing a local, Irish pub grub-type menu.”

The Taphouse is situated in premises that used to belong to veteran Derry publican, Gerry McCloskey. He had his bar – The Monico – there for many years until he retired earlier in 2016 and Rachael immediately acquired the lease.

“I’d always wanted The Monico but Gerry wasn’t for budging,” admits Rachael. “I’d always liked the look of the place and its location near the Peace Bridge is great.”

The Taphouse finally opened its doors under its new manager in July this year as Derry’s first craft ale and cocktail bar.

“It’s doing really well,” reports Rachael. “We have a great crowd, it’s a little quiet during the week like the rest of the town, but business is great at the weekends.”