Carrig Brewing Owners Purchase High Profile Dublin Pub

Brothers James and Edward Dunne, owners of the Carrig Brewing Company, have been revealed as the winning bidders who recently purchased Dublin’s high profile Clarendon Inn pub.

The final sale price of over €2.4m for the pub is far in excess of its initial guide valuation of €1.6m, although still quite below its initial construction cost. The unusual level of interest for the premises bucks the current trend, where inner city Dublin pubs are seen as exceedingly difficult to sell.

The drumshambo, Co. Leitrim-based brothers outbid 14 others to take ownership of the licensed premises, located on Clarendon Street – an ideally situated locale, halfway between Grafton Street and South Great George’s Street, in an area now well known for its proliferation of successful upmarket bars and restaurants.

The premises has an interesting recent history, having been bought in 1992 by Christian and Simon Stokes for €1.2m, who demolished the building and rebuilt it to its present-day spec of a 378sq m four storey over basement layout.

The Stokes brothers, who also owned Bang restaurant on Merrion Row, then sold the investment to developer Bernard McNamara for €7m, and leased it back at a rent of €400,000 per annum.

Both groups later got into severe financial difficulties, with the Stokes brothers running up debts of €2.4m. The business was eventually sold on the instructions of receiver Declan Taite of Duff & Phelps, through agent John Ryan of CBRE.

The building itself consists of a ground floor lounge bar complimented with an outside seating area, while the first floor has a lounge and customer toilets. A kitchen is located on the second floor and the top floor is a function room that benefits from the building’s relative height compared to its surroundings.

There is no word yet on what the new owners intend to do with the premises.