O’Neill’s

The wild boar and chorizo burger is absolutely incredible.

LOVE this place!!! Between Jenga of Death, Golden Tee, ‘Football’ matches and Quiz night, we spent an excessive amount of time here while studying abroad. If you’re lucky, you’ll even see the elusive Sweed try to Rollerblade up the stairs to the bathrooms.

Came here for St Patrick’s Day last year… eh. it was okay. Lived right up the block so figured — hey — why not!
Really — it was ‘eh’ — okay. Definitely not has happened as the central London O’Neills or anything like that.
Dined here a few times a year, as well. They have a reasonable menu, including some authentic Irish dishes.
If you’re looking for a decent eat, no fuss, and a good pint, stop in. But no need to travel out of your way ;-)

I have two vivid memories from my study abroad program in London in college. I’ll start off with the not so great memory. I was 20, it was 1998, and after a long night of drinking on a Tuesday night or something, a bunch of friends in my building and myself decide to go to an after hours club. So we drink a lot, and we all come home together, but somehow I lose them. I ring everyone I know in my building’s buzzer, but I think everyone was out cold. I’m cold, I’m drunk, and I’m tired. Now in London, a group of homes or apartments often share their own little park or courtyard surrounded by a large iron fence, they’re meant to be very private. So like an idiot, when I’m staggering around near my flat at 1AM, I see one of these secluded lawns, and decide that would be a wonderful place to sleep. Getting in was easy, I hopped up on the dumpster placed against the condo building and jumped over the 9 foot spiked fence, landed on the grass, and fell asleep under a tree. I’m awakened by the sun, it must be near 6AM, and I know if anyone sees me they’ll call the cops and I’ll go to jail. So I have to get out pronto. Getting out is not so easy. It’s just a 9 foot, spiked fence, with nothing to help you up. So I pull myself up the fence, and when I stand on the top the spike gouges into my foot and my body just gave out and fell. 9 feet directly onto the concrete sidewalk, right onto my chin. So after being briefly knocked unconscious, I wake up, and my chin is split wide open, and I’m bleeding pretty badly. I walk down the street and a guy heading to work tells me I should go to a Hospital, he’s very concerned, since I’m bleeding. I run away, back to my building, ring all the buzzers, everyone is still asleep. So I’m bleeding, hungover, I smell, and I decide it would be a good idea to ride the Underground to some place I can sleep. Well it’s rush hour, and I’m sitting next to men in suits while I’m totally out of it, with blood all over me. I make my way to some public park and sleep there for 4 or 5 hours. I then make it back home, get into my apartment, and clean up just in time to meet my parents for dinner who were visiting me from San Francisco that night. They were very impressed to travel 5,000 miles to visit their son and his split open chin. So yes, not my finest moment. Now for my fond repetetive memory of London, and that’s O’Neills. A large group of us (I’d say close to 100) lived about a half mile from here (on the corner of Gloucester Road and Collingham Road) and yes, we came here almost every single night, this place is really fun. Great Guinness, Newcastle, Smithwick’s, Bass Ale, lots of Jameson flowing, and this bar is really big, generally with live Irish music playing. They’ve got tons of board games inside and an enormous Jenga. I love this O’Neills, I miss it, and they owe me a pint or two because we made them enough money to survive a lifetime. A fun staff, an overall good time. The food is good too, standard greasy English fare. I’ll be back, someday.

A nice little pub in Earl’s Court, situated about a five minute walk from the tube station. It is a themed pub, but not tacky — it’s nicely decorated and the staff are really nice. I visited for a party in the function room, which is quite small but has plenty of seating. It also has a separate bar, although the drinks available there were a bit limited so I used the downstairs bar. Drinks were reasonably priced, especially for what seemed to be an affluent area of London, and although I didn’t have any food, several people were eating and it looked good! They have events on different nights, including pub quiz evenings and live music.

The shop was at the end of Earls court road. The shop had lots of spaceand it hold some good events too. The drink and food in the shop was really good value. Especially the food, they had many offers on and the quality was great value for money. This is a very good pub to go in Earls court area.

Now theme pubs are my nemesis, unlike an England cricket performance there are rarely any positives to be taken from them. For one I swear their toilets are always upstairs which is frankly not on, perhaps it’s styled to tire you out to make you consume.
The Earls Court branch of the O’Neils chain is actually a lovely old building and I would imagine it’s long been a pub location, it’s just far enough from the tube station to not be too busy. Like most of these Irish theme joints there’s little seating which I have no objection to and this particular one does cater for live music from thursday and over the weekend so one could have a jolly nice time in such a spacious little venue. It’s a big old place this and there’s also a function room upstairs which would at least save the legs every time a comfort break was needed.
Due to the fact that all theme pubs are evil one star would be a good achievement here but, the staff were friendly (including the doormen), the beer was well kept and cold and (on this occasion) free; the sun was also shining and I had myself a good time so with great pains I muster a the three stars. I’s have no problem re-​visiting this O’Neil’s, it’s a nice pub after all but with no extensive real ales I wouldn’t stay long and I’d hope no-​one would see me go in.