BACKGROUND

The contemporary Irish Pub was actually conceived by the company who brewed Guinness stout, Guinness Brewing Worldwide, (now Diageo), and was the result of a robust piece of market research.

Between 1985 and 1995, Guinness observed that each time an Irish Pub opened anywhere in the world, there was a very noticeable spike in Guinness beer sales, not just because of the pub itself, but because of other bar owners adding Guinness to their beer line-up in order to compete with success of the local Irish Pub. The phenomenon occurred across very diverse demographic, socio-economic and geographic regions, performing as consistently in Chicago as it did in Hamburg, Sydney or Tokyo. It seemed that no matter where somebody placed an Irish Pub, it became instantly successful. Out of this observation grew a question… so what are the global success factors to opening a successful O’Hagan’s authentic Irish Pub and Grill?

To answer this question, Guinness put together a team of interior designers, marketers and industry specialists to find out why Irish Pubs worked across multiple operating environments. The research was done across pubs throughout Europe and indicated strongly that successful Irish pubs everywhere were linked by certain critical success factors.

Though these factors or characteristics were not particularly remarkable in themselves, the insight gained was that if the operator wanted to be successful, it was mandatory for the pub to be faithful to its origins while remaining contemporary and relevant to its consumers.