Oliver St. John Gogartys — Restaurant in Dublin

Shocking. It's meant to be Dublin's top bar, and the expectations are set so high, yet it delivers so little. Let me break down my experience with this bar.

Atmosphere: Terrible. It's like being put in a cage with gorillas, and hell lets loose. You'll bump into middle-aged creepy men standing in the corners, watching over the bar like a creep in the corner, and drunk divorced women acting like clowns. You will not find anyone interesting here and definitely won't find a potential partner. And ESPECIALLY avoid the place if you're under the age of, I'd say, 40. The people inside are rude, self-entitled, and think they're the center of attention when in reality, they're just some sad, low-life middle-aged person spending their last paycheck on a drink just to realize they'll be out of money tomorrow because the food and drinks are so expensive here, and they don't make enough money.

Music: Repetitive, obnoxiously loud. Most other bars and entertainment places have the music at a perfect level, but here it's like they want to test at what volume your eardrums will explode at. And the musician? A cocky old man with a high ego who's career should've ended a long time ago. He is making fun of the audience (fair enough because they ARE terrible), but it just ruins the mood. The musician said to one of the guys in the bar along the lines of "If my daughter brought you home, I'd be shocked." The guy let out an awkward laugh, and probably left he bar rigth away. After almost every song, the musician advertises his overpriced CD that no one wants, and it's super annoying.

Cleanliness/Safety: The cleanliness in here should be a safety hazard. The floor is so sticky it's absolutely disgusting walking around the place. I leaned against the wall, and I still can't get rid of the stain from my jacket after numerous washes. You honestly need a hazmat suit going in there. Safety-wise, you see so many dangerous-looking people in there, and I heard that knives have been found on numerous people before. I've also HEARD that the workers find cocaine and other drugs in the bathrooms laying around. Just an absolute circus of a place.

Pricing: It should be a CRIME asking for that much money for food/drinks. I saw an article that this pub charges the most out of any pub in Dublin for certain food/drinks, and Dublin is already an expensive city. I'd honestly rather flush my money down the toilet than waste it in there.

Location/Aesthetics: It is in an excellent location, and the actual building from the outside looks nice. The bar also has very thoughtful festive decorations inside, especially for Christmas. But these reasons just aren't enough to make my rating go from a one-star to any higher.

There are so many other bars in Dublin where the atmosphere is better, where you'll meet actually interesting people and where the pricing is a lot better. While this place is just a tourist trap. Please go and find somewhere else to go. I promise you you'll have a...

The Temple Bar district is an historic pub area in Dublin. Oliver St. John Gogarty is a pub with afternoon live music, in this district. When we visited, the pub was loaded with tourists and we waited about ten minutes for a table.

Most of the waitresses and bartender were from countries other than Ireland, so there was a bit of a language barrier. This was compounded by the fact that the service was incredibly slow. Our group of four ordered food and water (we knew we were headed to the Porterhouse later for satisfying microbrews). I got the bowl of mussels. They were small mussels and the sauce was watery. They used just the faintest trace of butter and wine and a LOT of water. About 5% of the mussels were closed, and I didn't eat those because it means the mussel was dead before cooking and therefore unsafe to eat. The food was pricey here too.

The only redeeming qualities for this pub were the live band and the inner décor. We watched an amazing duo, Stephen O'Connor (on the pipes) and Dave Dunne (vocals/guitar), play traditional Irish music. See my attached photo. I highly recommend for someone to walk around the bar and look at the paintings and artwork on the walls. There were some quality artworks adorning the inside.

I would recommend a pint of Guinness here and avoid the food. You could view the artwork and watch the live band and have a...

Today I went to The Oliver St John Gogarty and I was served by a very rude employee. She never asked for my ID, and when I ordered a cocktail she gave me a shot of tequila. When I told her that she got my order wrong and asked if I could send it back without paying, she said no, which I understood, but told her that wasn’t what I had ordered. I had made it clear, along with a friend that came with me, that I had ordered a Tequila Sunrise (which is a cocktail). I didn’t know that they didn’t have that, she hadn’t understood what I had said and so I didn’t know they didn’t have it. When I asked her about her getting my order wrong, she said she couldn’t do anything and that I had already ordered the shot of tequila, which I had not. She asked me if I wanted to talk to the manager with more attitude than necessary for the conversation, I told her that wasn’t necessary as I didn’t want to cause a confrontation. In the end I ended up paying and drinking a shot of tequila that I didn’t want nor ordered. All because of a simple miscommunication that could’ve been easily avoided. Take this into consideration when talking to costumers because it was made clear by more than one person what I wanted and it was never clarified if they had or hadn’t, leaving me with a drink I didn't...