The Dublin house bar

The best Guinness this side of the pond. Period.

The Dublin House is a real, New York City, Irish, neighborhood bar. Been around since before Prohibition, and located on the Upper West Side, 79th Street between Broadway and Amsterdam, it is literally and figuratively a historical landmark. It was the first thing sailors saw after docking at the 79th Street boat basin.

Back in the day, people stopped in for a couple before work, so the Dublin House has always opened at 8am. Always has, still does, every day except Sunday when it opens at noon - closes at 4am seven days a week.

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A Brief History

An Irish guy named Carway first rented the Dublin House in 1921 from its then-owners, whose previous tenant was an orphanage. Prohibition had started two years earlier, so from the outside it looked like a residence, but thanks to certain business arrangements with the local authorities, inside it was a full bar and restaurant. The first floor was the bar, the second floor the restaurant, the back of the third floor was the kitchen, and a dumb waiter operated where the phone booth currently is.

Carway bought the whole building in 1933 after Prohibition ended and immediately affixed the Dublin House's iconic neon harp to the facade. The bar remained family-owned and operated for the next 85 years - Carway's nephew Chris Water took over in mid-stream - until Mike Cormican bought it in 2006. Mike is Dublin House family: one, he's Irish, as in "born in Ireland," and two, most importantly, he's been the Dublin House's main bartender for 16 years, working six nights a week, behind the stick, walking the planks.