Last year, Dublin O’Neil’s (located at 301 N. Neil Street) closed for a period of time, and underwent a “rebrand” which consisted of the following:
- Barely changing the name to Dublin’s Pub (why rebrand without a new name?)
- Keeping the Dublin O’Neil’s sign outside the restaurant (this is also confusing)
- Offering up self-proclaimed “best pizza in town” at an Irish Pub (but you just reopened!)
- Becoming a Blackhawks bar (this actually isn’t a terrible idea in theory)
There are more, but for the sake of this SPlog, I’ll stop there.
The collaboration to bring the DeLuxe fish sando back was actually awesome.
Now, Dublin O’Neils…er… Dublin’s Pub — herein known as Dub’s Pub — will close after only 10 months of being reopened. The self-proclaimed best pizza in C-U was apparently not enough to sustain the restaurant. Sad stuff.
Though the Gazoo has the scoop, the group at One Main Development is framing this as “making way” for a “new concept”, which reads like this to me:
Instead of taking cues from actual Irish pubs and/or embracing soccer culture, Dub’s Pub was a confused restaurant. 301 Mongolia has sat there, empty, for a while. Both weren’t very good, so why not scrap the concept and see who else has some ideas for a restaurant that might actually work?
Dub’s Pub is and soon-to-be was essentially a mall version of a bad Irish restaurant with basically no vision — and they are closing July 28th.
Top photo by Patrick Singer
