Pub group JD Wetherspoon buys Temple Bar development site for €9m

Wetherspoon chairman Tim Martin is happy with Ireland.

British pub group JD Wetherspoon has bought an office building in the centre of Dublin for €9m and plans to spend a further €4m on redeveloping it into a pub.

The move brings to more than €50m the amount Wetherspoon is currently investing in pub development sites in Dublin alone. 

It is also spending big on a number of developments elsewhere in the country.

The new building is located on Aston Quay and is close to the Temple Bar district. Wetherspoon is planning to redevelop the building into a pub set over three floors, with “a large roof terrace”. 

The Aston Quay site still requires planning permission and licensing approval before going ahead.

Continued expansion

It marks the group’s continued expansion in Ireland, plans for which have been ramping up of late. 

The new site will also significantly expand Wetherspoon’s presence in Dublin city centre; the group up to now largely having been focused on suburban sites in the capital.

Wetherspoon is set to start development work at a site in Hanover Quay, in Dublin’s south docklands, and is readying its €33m Keavan’s Port superpub/hotel project on Dublin’s Camden Street. That premises is set to open as soon as Covid restrictions allow, the company said.

“We have enjoyed great success in the Republic of Ireland and are continually on the lookout for new sites,” said Wetherspoon founder and chairman Tim Martin.

“We are delighted to have purchased the site in Aston Quay. The investment highlights our commitment to Dublin,” he said.

Wetherspoon is committed to Ireland countrywide. It currently operates seven pubs here and has long-standing ambitions to have at least 30 in the coming years.

Outside of Dublin, Wetherspoon already has pubs in Cork and Carlow. New openings are pending in Limerick and Galway, while it recently announced a near €4m investment in its first bar in Waterford, which is due to open later this year.

More Wetherspoon openings in Cork

Mr Martin has previously said there is scope for more Wetherspoon openings in Cork, where it owns the Linen Weaver bar on Paul Street in the city centre. He has also said Wetherspoon could – in the longer term – look at operating bar areas in Irish airport terminals; something it already does in the UK.

Though a vocal critic of lockdown restrictions as a means of tackling the pandemic, Mr Martin has said a slow reopening of the on-trade has not affected Wetherspoon’s expansion plans.

Ahead of the June 7 reopening of outdoor trade, Mr Martin called for a full reopening of Ireland’s pubs and restaurants “without delay”, saying the vaccine rollout programme and no widespread Covid transmission when hospitality was last open backed up his point.

Mr Martin has previously slammed lockdown methods as only causing “economic and social mayhem and colossal debts, with no apparent health benefits”.