Tradition on tap
Londonderry’s newest licensed premises – The Guildhall Taphouse in Custom House Street – is also the city’s first craft beer and cocktail bar.
Local publican, Rachael Eastwood, is the licensee behind Derry’s newest bar, the Guildhall Taphouse. She will already be a familiar face to many in the trade as the proprietor of the iconic Grand Central Bar on the Strand Road – one of Derry’s oldest pubs.
She took over the premises on Custom House Street just over a month ago, following the retirement of another well-known industry figure, Gerry McCloskey, whose Monico Bar had traded on the spot for more than 30 years.
Since taking over, Rachael has redeveloped the interior of the bar – all the walls have been re-plastered and the floors re-tiled. The bar counter and its surround have been renewed using reclaimed wooden doors around the base. The old seating has been re-upholstered and some of the familiar old booths that characterised the bar during its previous incarnation have been removed, adding a roomy, airy new ambience to the lounge. Lighting has also been updated, including the addition of energy-efficient LEDs in the bar area.
“What we didn’t want to do was create a really new, shiny bar, we wanted to keep things really traditional, “ says Will Toland, the Donegal-born general manager who looks after both of Rachael’s city centre premises. “We really like wood and we’ve used it extensively throughout. Even though the floor is tiled, we gave it a wood effect. We’re after a really comfortable, warm feeling, somewhere where people can be happy just sitting, enjoying a pint. We didn’t want to have ultra-modern surroundings.”
And according to Will, the new approach is going down well with the clientele:
“Everybody is loving it,” he tells LCN. “They’re telling us that it’s a really big turnaround for the place. A lot of our customers from the Grand Central are visiting us up here, but we’re also welcoming plenty of new faces, people who are looking for somewhere new to try out, and we’re getting a lot of tourists because we’re located right in the centre of the town.”
The Guildhall Taphouse has 14 taps and usually, around 11 of them will be dispensing craft beer. More brands are available in bottles and cans, including all the usual beers that you would expect to find.
Assistant manager, David Rankin, is the mixologist at the new venue. David has been associated with the cocktail scene in Derry since his days with the former Mandarin Karma restaurant in Queen’s Quay:
“We have all the classics on our cocktail menu at the moment,” says Will. “But if customers are looking for something that’s not on there, David will do his best to mix that for them. We also have plans to develop our cocktail offering much further and to put our own slant on many of the most popular drinks.”
Will also says that, despite changing times, the pub scene in Derry generally is “very exciting”:
“We did have a drop off during the recession, like everyone else, but that’s all started to come back over the last year or so,” he adds. “A lot of new bars have been opening their doors and many others are being re-done. Lots of city centre bars have been overhauled in the last year and things are thriving at present.”
In terms of priorities at the Guildhall Taphouse, Will says that getting the kitchen open and adding food to the offering is the next challenge. He hopes that this can be achieved by September:
“We haven’t decided yet exactly what type of food we’ll offer, but it will need to be something that goes well with our craft beers and cocktails,” he adds. “We’ll probably have a lunchtime and early evening offering, but it’s hard to say at this stage exactly what it will look like.”
As for the longer term, Will doesn’t rule out further expansion, even outside the city, but concedes that current commitments are enough to keep everyone busy for now:
“The big focus at the minute is on keeping things going, lifting the footfall here and making sure that the offering is as good as we can get it,” he adds.
