Paddy’s Bar

I wasn’t holding out much hope for this place at all. It was clear even from the street that the tiny window stamped into the green shabbiness of the building’s frontage wouldn’t be letting in much natural light. I was expecting to push open the door and be confronted with two vicious-​looking men putting bits of a Doberman into a bin bag. The only sounds would be the blood blasting through my ears, followed by a gun cocking.
I’m happy to report Dixie Dean’s (or Paddy’s Bar) is nothing like this. Oh yes, it’s dingy as hell. Yes, there’s Irish tat hanging from every square inch of ceiling and the customers are all on their ninth livers, but I liked the place. Basically just a corridor crammed with crappy souvenirs and flags, one wall is the huge curved bar. The other wall is lined with chairs, at which you can sit and stare at the bar three feet in front of you.
The regulars are a comradely bunch, probably having known each others’ names longer than their own, and the barmaid is undoubtedly the most Irish human in existence. Also, the fact that the far end of this narrow bar is piled high with furniture leads me to believe that the building just keeps going on for miles. One day I’ll man an expedition into this shadowy abyss. Wish me well.

Another pub in Liverpool with a confusing set of names, Paddy’s Bar above the door, Dixie Dean’s on the pub sign.
Paddy’s like all of the pubs along London Rd has more than a touch of the wild west about it:
–we serve hard liqour for hard drinkin men
–well bar keep I’ll have a flaggan of you finest ale
–we got stella
–then stellar it is my good… oh, hmm appears to have a little something on the, oh well, all part of the charm I suppose, chin chin
Paddy’s has clearly seen better days, it’s about as tired and craggy as the faces of the punters in here and most of them are only 35 but you catch it at the right time and it’s a lively place. I can’t hold nything against the place, I love these well worn, dirty old haunts because they are everything that the bland new bars aren’t. This is no reverse snobbery but when you get a new bar wrong it’s souless, at least this place has had time to gain a soul — it just so happens that soul has drinking problem.

It seems that you cannot walk more than a few hundred yards around Liverpools’ city center without stumbling accross another Irish bar and so I found myself outside Paddys’ bar on one sunny afternoon.
It could hardly be a more typical Irish bar and the customers all seem to be from the emerald isle infact it is probably rare to find a native of merseyside inside the place.
The décor here is shabby and the bar area feels crowded and a little bit uncomfortable to be perfectly honest. The bar staff are not the typical friendly Irish types you might expect to find instead when they actually get around to serving you if you are not a regular they seem annoyed they have to spend their time providing your drinks.
The prices of the drinks are nothing special and there is no real niche about Paddy’s bar to draw you inside. Infact there are many other drinking holes on London Road and if you dont want to feel like an outsider your probably better off visiting one of them.
Paddy’s bar is an Irish bar which has most of the stereotypes you would expect bar the good atmosphere which in my eyes means it is not on a par with its’ peers.

It took allot of nerve to even work up the courage to think about venturing into Paddy’s Bar.
It is probably more irish a pub than many of Ireland’s own pubs and the clientele would like to keep it that way.
You don;t get an unwelcome feel from in here, it’s just that I suspect they would warm up to you if you were brave enough to head in everyday for several months and drink a pint of bitter or guinness. Sadly I can’t attempt this and hence my experience of Paddy’s bar was short and sweet.
The bar itself is fantastic, packed high with memorabilia. The atmosphere was just a little bit too packed for a leisurely drink.

Ahh, Paddy’s, the little known wonder of London Road. Imagine the most stereotypically Irish pub you can. Got it? Right, now have a Leprechaun vomit pots of gold and shamrocks all over it and you’re a little bit closer to what it’s like in here.
It’s tiny, and it doesn’t really ever look open from the outside. The kind of place where you wouldn’t want to stay for too long and /​or have been here so long that only the bar will suffice to prop you up. This seems to be the story for the main clientele here anyway. With balloons from Paddy’s Day ’07 still hanging from the ceiling, a little, well deflated at their uselessness and Irish everything from flag to posters and coasters cluttering every surface in the place you might find it a little out-​dated to say the least and claustrophobic.
However, I don’t know if it’s the sheer camaraderie of a St Patrick’s Day celebration here (to be honest I wouldn’t venture here on too many other occasions), or the dirt cheapness of the drinks hazing my judgement, but there is a slight dingy charm to this place.