Leggs

Leggs just kind of happens to you sometimes when everywhere closes and you’re not ready to go home.
The wine is shite, the floors are sticky, the music is cheesy and the décor is kind of like a really bet-​down version of the Trocadero (on St. Andrew’s St). But if you’re going to go there at all, you’re probably going to be hammered with your equally hammered friends, find it all hilarious, and therefore have a brilliant time by default. You might not want to make a habit of it though as there’ll inevitably be a crippling hangover afterwards.
On a side note, once as I was getting into a taxi outside Leggs at whatever time it closes (I don’t think anyone knows) someone ran after the taxi and threw a book (A Spot of Bother by Mark Hadden, if you’re wondering) in after us, shouting «READ IT… IT’LL CHANGE YOUR LIFE!» So now for ya.

My first introduction to Leggs was hearing about this almost mythical sounding place from friends who were either from, or had worked in, Dublin. Living in Cork, the place was made to sound almost exotic. The second mention of Leggs was noticing that everybody seemed to be joining the Facebook group «Leggs: you say you hate it, you know you love it». This was slightly more ominous.
Fast forward to a Christmas party in the Shelbourne. It’s a work thing. We’ve paid rather too much for glasses of wine and killer drink combinations. It’s 2am and the previously lovely Shelbourne staff are starting to get a bit tired of us. Somebody suggests Leggs and it’s agreed that it is a FANTASTIC idea. We pile into a taxi to bring us all the way around the corner (strappy sandals-​ow!) and join the lengthy queue. Luckily, one of our group had a misspent youth and manages to sweet talk the bouncers into letting us in. I’m all excited and descend the staircase… to find my nice sandals sticking in the carpet. It’s dingy, crowded and only sells expensive wine, champagne and bottles of random stuff like Ritz. I confiscate a bottle of Ritz from a male colleague for his own good (I mean, really!) and he buys a bottle of wine. Most of my glass of wine and bits of other glasses find their way onto my dress and hair thanks to the hordes of drunken revellers looking for that special someone. The queue for the tiny scummy bathroom is loooong. We lose half the group… Leggs begins to seem like a rather bad idea.
However, it’s open late and there’s plenty of talent in there. The music is good and you never know who you’ll bump into. Next time I’ll just have to wear shoes with reinforced toes for the trampling and I’ll be ready for action!

it’s 2am on a random Thursday night… you and your mates are hammered after going for «one drink» and going all experimental with the cocktail menu and you haven’t yet got your dance on… then you see the real tragedy of the recession — all your favourite drunken dancing haunts no longer open late on week nights… you’re about to cry briefly before giving up and getting chips and then someone suggests Leeson street and before you know it the gravitational pull of Leggs has taken effect.
Now 2am is early in Leggs, then place was almost empty when we arrived, but that was fine for the RunDMC style dance-​fighting I had planned to do on the dancefloor anyway… it also gave us time to explore the menu. As far as drinks go the stock is shite — they basically fleece you with very expensive bottles of plonk — the real beauty lies in the fact that you can also get chips and other fried foods at your table for a reasonable price. sweet! The place started to fill up around 3 or so and it had to be said that the atmosphere was fairly relaxed and friendly… but I could see it going down a grabby route after not too long. In the end the consciousness that I had to be in work in a matter of hours and the tiredness got to me, so I’ve no idea when Leggs closes, but it would seem to be quite late!

What I remember most about Leggs is the sticky floors and losing my ticket for the cloakroom. Well, not losing as such… just forgetting where I’d put it in my drunkenness. The music is strangely comforting though, mostly 80s and 90s stuff which makes me feel young (er) again. There is a pretty extensive wine menu and they also do food until late, it’s more finger food than proper dinner though.
All in all, it’s the sort of place where the slightly older– read late 20s to early 40s– go to have a good night and most likely end up drunkenly snogging some randomer… Good times.

My abiding memory of this place is from back in the day, the night of our graduation from school. Getting drunk with the teachers (ooh, how very scandalous), smoking with the teachers (even those of us who didn’t smoke did that night, just so we could say we did!), watching them attempt to dance… it took us that long to realise that many of them were a mere four or five years older than us… and that they were actually human beings.
Leggs is grand, not really my cuppa tea to be honest, but it’s not too terrible. The underground thing is quite cool (bit of a theme on Leeson St) and the décor was grand. Nothing to write home about really, and if you’re not a Leeson St regular (and I mean strictly in the partying sense) then I wouldn’t say you should drag yourself up there just for this.