Is there luck without the Irish?
The Tin Whistle has been sold.
I was sitting in Starbucks on Friday afternoon when my phone buzzed. It was my friend Matt, one of two guys who started the Irish bar downtown. He sounded distracted, maybe a little more emotional that usual.
“So, uh, I just wanted to say, uh, we sold the bar.”
“You what?”
“Yeah, we sold it, so this is our last night in the bar.”
And at that point I was sort of dumbstruck. Didn’t they love running the Whistle? Just a few months ago Matt was telling me about expanding, making it more of a restaurant. They’ve been serving Irish breakfast (eggs, bacon, sausage, tomato, baked beans) since the start of the year. “Who did you sell it to?” I asked.
“Some Chinese people. Anyway, this is our last night in the bar.”
I didn’t make it down to the Whistle on Friday for Matt and Eddie’s last night, and I haven’t seen either of them since. What I gather from people who were there is that they just got tired of it. The business was becoming a job, and neither left their homes in Ireland to spend all their time working. Eddie is on pension, and Matt does some part time consulting. Both realized a few years ago that living on Euros in China was a lot easier than scraping by on fixed income in Europe.
When I think about it, though, it’s not all that surprising to see them give up the bar. The place has been dead empty the last few times I’ve been in. Except for twice-monthly poker nights, there just hasn’t been much happening, and the owners were becoming a rarer site.
Matt broke his foot on St. Patrick’s Day, a few minutes after that poker tournament I almost won. He walked out of the bar sometime after 3 a.m., stumbled on the steps, and ended up in the hospital. He didn’t return for two months.
That seemed to take a lot out of him. It sapped his desire to run the place and kept him homebound for weeks. Eddie started showing up less and less, too, and they let another guy manage the bar for a while.
When I told people that the Whistle had been sold, the reaction was little more than a widespread shrug. I have a sentimental attachment to the place because it was the first bar I found in Dalian, and I have good memories there. I’m curious to see what becomes of it, but part of me doesn’t want to go back. I’m afraid of what it will be, and some memories are best left untouched.
The new owner used to work in the bar, and she’s a former classmate of Matt’s wife. For now, it will remain an Irish-themed bar, but I don’t know if you can still get Irish credit without Irish owners, though. It needs more than wood paneling and Guinness on tap. There might be rules about this.
May 28th, 2007 at 4:16 pm
u,is it the bar in the front of our school?呵呵~there’re other interesting place in Dalian,i think…
May 28th, 2007 at 4:49 pm
Irish bars around the world (outside Ireland) are peculiar in that they serve two roles:
The first being a natural haven for the Irish, and others that will come once a critical mass of regular foreigners/those that appreciate some Irish banter has built up. This mainly benefits the local longer term population
The second being somewhat a McDonalds factor. If it’s an Irish bar you’re pretty sure what you’re going to get when you walk in the front door. This benefits the transient population a lot. A hotel bar but not in a hotel and not personality-less like hotel bars tend to be.
A third target group are the longer term expats who want a taste of home but who are not necessarily in social groups with other expats (or infact want a break from them) - probably falling between the above two categories.
I sometimes went to The Tin Whistle for Matt, Eddie and Eamon, and sometimes because I wanted a cooked breakfast and draft beer when I was downtown. Regular visitation never happened because I lived too far away. I’d be interested to see any record of the demographics of the Tin Whistle - what grouping of people bought the most. It’s also a bar which did little promotion other than a couple of regular events that were only spread by local word-of-mouth; I think there remains a lot of potential for it as a business, and I think they’ve sold it to the right sort of person for that.
But without Matt, Eddie, Eamon and Sophia working the bar, it will be different. I wonder what the Irish Footie guys make of it - that may be the test.
May 29th, 2007 at 2:51 am
Like you Alex, I didn’t get down there nearly as often as I’d have liked.
But I hope it doesn’t change too much.
I’ve seen that place go through many incarnations over the years.
But but this was the best one.