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“I can’t tell you the last time I got asked for a craft ale,” said Eddie Cunningham from behind the bar of The Station in Didsbury Village, where I’m sitting having half a Guinness on a quiet Thursday afternoon.
“Guinness outsells all the other products by a distance. We do probably, on average, about twenty kegs a week, they’re 11-gallon kegs, each about 88 pints, and the bulk of that is done at the weekend.”
Didsbury’s Irish pub renaissance
Eddie at The Station
One thousand seven hundred and sixty pints of Guinness from a modestly sized pub. Weekends see The Station swell with punters spilling out onto the pavement, but surely this boom can’t simply be down to the domination of Guinness in recent years?
“I think there’s an expectation that goes with Irish pubs,” said Eddie. “You expect some sort of live entertainment, and live music’s a big thing these days. We have it three or four nights a week. Come the weekend, people are in the mood for live bands, and if I were to go out in an area I didn’t know, I’d probably look at where the Irish bar is.”
You can see what’s happening at The Station on their Instagram here
Why have Irish pubs become so popular?
The Salmon of Knowledge, Didsbury edition
The Salmon of Knowledge owner, Steve Pilling, has a straightforward answer when asked what accounts for the recent rise in popularity of the Irish pub.
“Very simply, people have seen the momentum behind them and jumped onto the bandwagon,” he said. “It’s always nice to be ahead of the curve.”
So what led Steve to take his existing sites – Ply in NQ’s Stephenson Square and the Dockyard sites in Didsbury Village and Media City – and transform them into Irish pubs complete with an opaque name referencing a founding myth of Ireland?
“It was an epiphany driven by a love of Irish bars,” he said. “And we all subscribe to opening bars that we would have fun in, and The Salmon is no different.”
What about that factor most associated with Irish pubs, and that can’t be bought in from a brewery, atmosphere? Irish pubs are almost a shorthand for a certain air of authentic conviviality. I guess now you’d call that community, something Eddie explains is created by not one pub but all of them, looking out for one another instead of scrapping for competition.
“We’ve always had a good relationship with the other pubs, We don’t see them as competition, we help each other out, whether they need a favour or they’re short on change.”
“We’ve always had a good relationship with the other pubs,” he said. “We don’t see them as competition, we help each other out, whether they need a favour or they’re short on change.
Inside Kennedy’s Didsbury
“Didsbury’s always been heavy on the community side of things and there’s enough business to go round. Just walk through the village every weekend and you’ll see Didsbury Dozens, and we all know how popular that’s become.”
Now enjoying a boom period for pub-goers, Didsbury Village has rolled with the punches over the years, said Steve.
“It’s been through many evolutions,” he explained. “From the busiest area in South Manchester to Wilmslow Road being desolate and quiet. It’s now going through a renaissance with the arrival of The Salmon, Kennedy’s and Bunny Jackson’s, and hopefully there are many more to come and create a vibrant pub scene that should last a generation.”
Do young people still enjoy the pub?
Time for a Guinness
Speaking of generations, the threat of young people swerving the pub in favour of the gym isn’t something Eddie has seen in the village, spelling good business for local pubs in the future.
“I’ve been here 12 years,” Eddie explained. “And the last two or three, there was lots of talk about young people not drinking as much as they used to. I’ve not seen any evidence of that. The appetite is as good as ever.
“I don’t know if that’s just here being a bit of a one-off of a nightlife spot – with people coming in from outside the area – but there’s definitely been an increase in footfall.”
The Didsbury Dozen
With the Dozen providing a regular influx of punters, how about the quiet half on an afternoon, once a steady certainty for pubs?
“If you take the weekends, for example,” explained Eddie, pouring another half for the gent sat next to me. “A lot of our local regulars, who come in here day in day out, they know the chaos that the Didsbury Dozen brings, not to mention the fancy dress, so they just come out early.
“That helps us, as we know our regulars are coming in from 11 am or midday and are done by 4 pm. Then the dynamic shifts, you say goodbye to those people and say hello to five people dressed as Super Mario.”
The most understated of Irish pubs, The Station
So with the tide of Guinness and Irish hospitality now washing through the village, another academic year upon us (with attendant Super Marios), and a buoyant local pub scene sharing in the spoils, what does the future hold for Eddie and The Station, that most Irish but understated of pubs? Eddie is similarly understated.
“We just carry on doing what we’ve been doing for years now,” he said. “It’s working. Whatever we’re doin, we seem to be doing it right.”
Perhaps it’s the steady regularity of locals like this that will keep Didsbury Village from any more wilderness years. Maybe it’s less the promise of a pint of Guinness and more the familiar faces and sense of community. It can’t hurt that Eddie and The Station staff do a really good pour.
One thousand seven hundred and sixty pints poured a week can’t be wrong.
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