Buy-in to busy nightlife with Washington Street area’s James Street 1767

CARRYING one of the stronger Cork city bar price expectations for some time is the Washington Street area’s James Street 1767 Late Bar & Restaurant — a 6,500 sq ft complex with dual street frontage and previously known as The Bailey.

Set right next to the city’s historic classical Courthouse between the city centre and UCC campus, the complex has cafe/bar frontage to the rapidly reinvigorating Washington Street (where SpitJack Rotisserie Brassiere’s a buzzy new arrival, to be followed by West Cork Burgers) and a more sizeable linked premises onto Courthouse Street/James Street, taking its name from an ancient, adjacent stone plaque dating James Street to 1767.

It traded for many years as The Bailey, after being set up by Declan Buckley (the name went with a move from an earlier, 1970s Bailey bar behind the Washington Inn by Liberty Street), and took on the James Street moniker about two years ago: it is currently owned by a consortium of bar operators. It is now for sale by agent Cearbhall Behan of Behan Irwin Gosling/Downing Commercial, with best and final bids sought by July 27.