Harbour & Co. is LCN Bar of the Year

Harbour & Co. is LCN Bar of the Year

Harbour & Co., the second venue to be opened in Donaghadee by the Waterworth family, has won LCN’s hotly-contested Bar of the Year title for 2016.

Speaking to this magazine after winning the LCN Bar of the Year title, which was announced during our gala awards evening at the Europa in Belfast in early June, Lewis Waterworth of Harbour & Co. in Donaghadee said that he had been “delighted and surprised” by the victory:

“To be honest, when I saw the quality of the competition, to come top in this category against venues such as The Albany and The Morning Star, that’s quite something,” he told LCN.

For the first time this year, the Bar of the Year category at the LCN Awards involved a public vote as well as our traditional independent judging process, undertaken by Spotcheck NI. And our media partner this year, Q Radio, gave punters the chance to voice their opinions on NI’s best bar when they broadcast live from each of the venues during the run-up to the gala evening.

The Waterworth family have been known in the popular seaside town for many years as the proprietors of the successful Pier 36 restaurant and guest house.

They have owned the prime seafront property in which Harbour & Co. is located since 2002. It traded successfully as the Ocean Drive Bar for many years but then, in August last year and following a £750,000 investment, Harbour & Co. finally opened its doors to the public.

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The new bar is a bold departure from the traditional approach that the family adopted in their award-winning Pier 36 restaurant, which is just four doors along the seafront from the new venue.

Harbour & Co. defeated very stiff competition to win the LCN Bar of the Year title for 2016. This was the biggest category in the competition this time and joining the Donaghadee venue in the line-up of finalists were Belfast venues Brewbot, The Albany and The Morning Star; last year’s winner, the formidable Mary’s Bar in Magherafelt; Pretty Mary’s Bar and Foodhouse in Moira; The Central Winebar in Ballycastle and The Speckled Hen Pub and Dining Room in Lisburn.

Helping to ramp up the excitement around this year’s award, our media partner, Q Radio, undertook live broadcasts from each of the competing venues in late May – and for the first time ever, public opinion played a part in the process, with hundreds of punters casting a vote for their favourite venue via the LCN website.

“In terms of the downstairs bar, we’re really just letting it bed in,” explained Lewis. “What we’re really chasing is the holy grail for bars. We want the downstairs bar to be used more like a European-style coffee bar in the daytime and weeknights and a proper bar at the weekends. That’s really where we see the future in this marketplace. The Albany in Belfast has had a good go at this, I think, and aren’t far away from it, but the one that has really achieved it is the National Grande Café.”

Lewis sees Harbour & Co as a bar that’s “very much of its time”:

“When we build Pier 36 in 1999, it was very much of its time too and back then, it felt very modern,” he went on. “Now, it appears very traditional and Harbour & Co. is much more the modern offering.”

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He says that it’s “incredibly important” to win awards such as the LCN title:

“Most people will say that it’s important for the bar and the business and it is, but for me – and with this award in particular – it brings real kudos to our staff. We have a really great team here at both our venues. We took a lot of staff with us on the night of the LCN Awards because we wanted to reward them for the work that they had put in. With Harbour & Co., they have really lifted the baton and run with it. Their commitment to us and how hard they work is great.”

Lewis also paid tribute to his father, Denis, who has been a strong driver of the Harbour & Co. project from the start:

“For him to Bar of the Year has just been phenomenal, I know he’s really delighted,” added Lewis.

 

Our picture shows Jody Waterworth (left) and Lewis with their LCN Bar of the Year 2016 door plaque and certificate.

 

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