40 Foot

Come here for cheap drinks — but don’t touch anything, don’t eat anything. The dirtiest bar/​restaurant in Ireland. Tables, bar tops, all the condiment bottles, menus, etc. absolutely disgusting and sticky. And the place stinks — no ventilation at all. Even on a warm day, they never open windows. Uugghhhh.
Oh and by the way the service at the bar is terrible. But drinks are cheap, so they save money elsewhere

great view and the bar is nice but I thought the food a bit overpriced, worth seeing just for location alone though i’d have to say

Really nice pub. Laid out over two floors with glass windows all round letting in fanatic views of the coastline of Dun Laoghaire. The seating is slept in four types. Normal restaurant seating vs bar stools vs laid back chairs and tables. And the last option is the outdoor area, which is on both levels of the pub.
Price wish food is average price. Beer on the other hand is cheap and not cheap bad it’s cheap good quality. Worthy of a visit on either a sunny day or more likely a rainy day.
What’s missing it have the look and open air of a new pub, if you want the warmth and feeling of a more local Irish pub this isn’t going to be it for you.

The very cheap drink does not make up for the total lack of atmosphere.
No music, no sport and the extremely bright lighting makes you feel like you are in a hotel lobby.
They stop serving at 12.30 exactly, and keep asking you to leave from 12.35 onwards.
There is a half hour drinking up time in Ireland …
However, it would be good to get 3 – 4 cheap drinks in and jump on the Dart into town.

Worst service in the entire Dun Laoghaire place!
Price are cheap, view is fantastic, beers are great.
Just a place for a drink with friends watching the ocean.
If you like good food and nice service just pass your way!

This place is ridiculous. Came here for a bite to eat, saw that food was served to tables so I assumed they do table service. Turns out they don’t, OK. Went to the bar to order, place was busy that’s fine, but waited a while to be served while they served others around me who arrived after me. I attempted to order what I wanted to eat only to be told that they needed a table number to take my order. As I was on my own, had noone to mind the table I’d been sat at and someone had taken the table while I was waiting to order. So I was asked to look for a table to give them the number! Again, who was going to mind it for me, as I didn’t want to leave my things unattended while I order. Talk about inefficient. The staff were unmoved and expected me to sort myself out somehow in this endless loop of sitting at a table, getting the table number and ordering. I mean, most places give you a number to take with you if they don’t take table orders. Ended up walking out as it wasn’t worth the hassle.

lame-​ity lame-​ity lame lame.
Met a mate for a walk and a pint down Dun Laoghaire-​way for some winter, um, drizzle action. Looked for a place for a pint.
I dunno what about the Dun Laoghaire beach suggests miami, but this place is the frontage piece for a crappy looking «burlesque» (think «Oirish») nightclub thing more at home on Harcourt Street or Oxford Street than down in this nice seaside town.
We were starving and asked for a cheese toastie. No, of course they don’t do them. They have a Poshy MacTerrible menu with about 6 chicken strips breaded and fried in sweet chili sauce for € 12.
They do pour a decent– but not particularly good– pint.
And they have this odd contraption where you put a card behind the bar and pour your own pints. You know. Like for a stag party or something.
And a nice view.
But that’s about it.
Just, no, really, don’t.

After some consideration to complete a review about the place I decided to give my opinion based on my own experience.
Looking at previous reviews you might think i was a bit harsh giving only two starts but my rationale is based on the following:
1– Food
The menu lacks some light bites for a Saturday/​Sunday lunch (only Cesar salad offered) and some more fish dishes (fish pie and chowder are the only two). In terms of flavour, the food is inconsistent, the same dish can be good one day and really bland another day. I live locally and I had the opportunity to suffer this.
On the positive note the spice chicken wings are lovely!!!
2-​Service
This is the main reason i came with the two starts. The waiting staff lacks professionalism, with some individual exceptions. Wrong orders taken has been the norm in several occasions. I completely understand Rebecca on her review about the nonfood area (makes no sense) and some of the waiters seem to avoid to look at you when you need them.
It is a pity, as a local resident, I would like to see the place to improve as the views are lovely and the fireplace stunning (deco is nice). The consistency of the food, the limited menu and the lack of training of the waiting staff are easy to fix. Let’s hope they get enough feedback to rectify.

I think this place was having a really bad day. Dun Laoghaire would be my local, expect I much rather the city centre, so the odd time that I do visit this place is to have a chill out day with a nice cocktail, and I’ve never actually eaten here so when I decided to treat my lovely Mother to lunch I figured here would be the perfect spot.
Not the best choice, we took up a seat at the window and waiting to be served. Looking around at the staff no one even came over to us, so I grabbed up 2 menus and tried to find someone to take our order. I wandered up to the waitress (or manager as it turned out whoops) and enquired whether we could order our food when she hit me with a shocker «Sorry we only serve food down this part» to which I replied «Yes but there are no seats and we are literally right next to it, nearly in it in fact» to which I was told if we could wait ten minutes they could try to find us a seat. In the end we went for lunch in Toscana’s (which was perfect as usual)
The reason I’m giving it an extra star is the view, it really is breathtaking and I’m a sucker for scenic views. The outside seating area is amazing just to sit back and chill with a nice drink and soak up all the yachts floating out in the pier, and in fairness the odd time that I have been here for drinks the staff have been quick and friendly.
I wasn’t the only person that was disappointed with this service as two separate couples walked out grumbling about the fact that no one was «bothering to serve» them. Now it was a sunny day, and a lot of people were sitting outside with food so I really don’t understand why I need to wait for a table to even order my food when it would be just as easy to bring it to every table? Or maybe they were having a bad day, either way I won’t be coming here again for lunch or dinner.

The 40 Foot tends to be a bit big and lacking in atmosphere. It’s by the sea so it’s one of those spots that is way, way nicer on a sunny summer’s evening. In fact it can be downright depressing on a dark winter’s night — the howling wind and rain outside don’t go well with the inside vibe. They serve nice wine by the glass and the service is generally pretty good. However I wouldn’t say the same for the food. I used to have a lot of work nights there, where we would order finger food platters and it was always only OK — it certainly could have been better. On the other hand, they definitely know how to make a good cocktail and they will reserve a seat section for you if you ask so it’s good for groups. It’s worth checking out if you’re in the area.

My relationship with the 40ft is pretty much the exact same as Daves. He lives across the road from me, it used to be our local, go figure.
As the man said, they used to have some proper bangin’funk and soul. Groovy music you can groove to is great when you want to get your groove on, I find.
And they also had the worlds greatest bouncing team, Aran and Tony. Generally, a good experience with bouncers is defined as anything short of kissing the ground with someone’s knee in your neck. To have a pair of genuinely sound bouncers was a revelation.
But then they changed the name to the irredeemably pretentious «Bodega», got new bouncers who you didn’t know by name and started playing, I dunno, George Michael or some equally dire shite.
But one sunny day I showed up, having not been in ages, to find the dejected barstaff on the wrong side of the bar «Sorry, we’re closed». I assumed it was some plumbing issue and it would be business as usual by Monday but no, the doors were locked and the windows painted over. Bodega was dead.
Then, on the greatest weekend Dun Laoghaire has to offer (see festival of World Cultures), it re-​opened as the refurbished 40ft. There would’ve been dancing in the streets anyway because of the festival, but I like to think that at least one of us was doing it for the resurrection of a once great boozer.
It’s still too early to tell wether it’s as good as before though, review update pending…

I first experienced the forty foot about 2 or 3 nights ago during the Dun Laoighre festival of World Cultures. People were quite literally hanging off the massive upper floor terrace barriers as the Dunleary streets were filled with the beautiful noises of reggae and tribal beats. There was a real buzz about Dunleary for the festival and it seemed like the locals were genuinely thrilled to have their pub back, even if it was rammed full of nobs trying to culture themselves by buying Erdinger and Nepalese curry paste.
I’d say give it a few weeks for the noobs to drop off, then sneak in for a chilled pint on a Tuesday afternoon.

This place reopened recently after the highly unpopular and frankly silly decision to turn the original 40 foot bar into a wine and tapas bar called «Bodega»… needless to say it Dived … badly.
So it has returned… and i wonder if all of the little things that added up to its former demise have finally been put right. The old forty foot used to be my regular, because it felt young and hip enough for a guy my age and his friends, yet still had the local feel, plus it had real decent funk and soul music on the weekends. However they decided for god knows what reason to raise the admission to 23s and over. which must be illegal. So they pretty much killed of their whole market in one fowl swoop.
The new bar reopened for the Festival of World Cultures with a completely renovated interior and a massive party. There was plenty of music and BBQ however the upstairs was reserved for those who worked on the festival to party into the night. Everyone was allowed access and there wasn’t really an age limit unless of course you were truly under age. I don’t know if it was really that clever to reopen the bar with all of its lovely new furnishings to the mad hoard of Dun Laoghaire. i can only imagine there was a good bit of damage done to the place. However in time we will see if the new owners have learned from the past mistakes and will take a chance to allow Dun Laoghaire to once again have a decent place to come and drink and an attractive proposition to those who don’t want to travel all the way into town for a good night out.