Gillian's Irish Pub — Restaurant in Dunn

We have visited many Irish establishments over many years in multiple states. This is a review of the visit I had to this one. First off I want to say we had high hopes for this establishment, many advertisements over the last year from billboards to word of mouth to social media gave us hopes that this place will be authentic. When we entered, we were not greeted, and we found a table ourselves. The place is about the size of a decent neighborhood bar. I didn’t count the tables, but it looked like maybe ten two toppers and a couple booths in the back. Outside seating is much bigger. The establishment feels like a bar, and we were worried the menu would reflect my first opinion. As far as the staff, the bartender was occupied by a couple of patrons at the bar, and was not attentive to anything else but what seems like a flirt going on. Our waitress was very polite, she wore a kilt, and was very much part of the environment. Two other waitresses wore t shirts and jeans, which felt like a normal cafe look. The environment is a mix of sports teams memorabilia and some Irish signs. In my option failed to meet the Irish feel. When we ordered, they were out of the days special drink, which was odd because they were only open for a hour at this time, and they were also out of Irish beer. After ordering our drinks, the wait was around 15 minutes before we received them. The bartender still seemed to be involved in heavy flirting, and decided that making drinks was not an option at this moment. this was the first time I’ve ever drinkin American beer at an Irish pub. My wife ordered the Rueben, which she enjoyed, but it seemed very thin, with no sauce inside. I ordered the Shepard pie, it was a canned stew with under cooked mashed potatoes thrown on top, unbraised. Not very authentic for shepherds pie. We ordered cheese filled deep fried nuggets for an appetizer, most of them were empty inside, and they were clumped together from the cheese escaping, they were over cooked. It took forty minutes for the order to reach our table. So our eating experience was not a great one. As we were eating our meal, the bartender left his engagement with the women at the bar and walked over to our table. I thought he might be asking how our meal was, but instead he let us know that we had to leave our table because an entertainer needed our area to setup. This was another disappointment, as we waited forty minutes to get the meal, and only 15 minutes to enjoy it. We finished eating with a couple entertainers staring us down in an attempt to get us to hurry up. A very uncomfortable feeling. This experience cost us 92.00 with a tip for the only good experience to the waitress we had. In conclusion, we felt as though this establishment is just another sports bar. They fell very short to an Irish experience, and it seems as though they’re looking for a flirty local drinking hole. My advice is to get an authentic dress code, get a serious bartender, which seems to be the center of attention and focus point, and bring in an Irish cook. At that point I would be willing to pay the price they require to...

TAKE CAUTION IF BRINGING CHILDREN This was our first and last visit , which is really sad as we were so excited about this business opening. We also love to support our local business, but our experience was awful. The wait times are high but it is to be understood as it seems they are short staffed and I never fault for that, and to be honest I wouldn't be leaving a negative review if it wasn't for one particular employee, a dark haired older women who I assume is the manager or owner. While we were waiting she was behind the bar yelling profanities and complaining extremely loudly about other guests of the establishment, mind you this was during a 5pm visit and there were plenty of families with small children including ours . We just tried to ignore this as our waitress was quit pleasant. Our food wasn't terrible but wasn't great, however our daughter actually really enjoyed her Fish n' Chips. My husband ordered the Ribeye which comes with a side of mashed potatos and cheesy cauliflower and brocolli. When he ordered this he asked if there was a way to just get cheesey brocolli and was told that is fine and wasnt a problem, but when it came out it was just a bowl of brocolli so my husband asked for just the side of cheese to add it to it himself, which our waitress was very sweet and apologized for and went to retrieve it, but instead of her bringing him just a side of cheese a whole new order of cheesey cauliflower no brocolli was brought by the older dark haired women, which she then tossed down on the table and proceeded to scold and berate us about how that is the way it comes and we need to know it for future reference as she walked away from our table and around the bar screaming about it, all the other guest just stared at us. Again we were never told by our waitress that the side item was a pre mixed frozen bag of cauliflower and brocolli, otherwise he would have never ordered it. The entire interaction was insanely unprovoked, unexpected, and outrageously unprofessional, and as she appeared to be the only manager we could not make a complaint and due to her highly aggressive, volger, and argumentative behavior we decided it was better to just pay our check leave, never recommended, or even return, which is very sad because we had such high hopes. This is the absolute worst dinning experience we...

Super cute Irish themed bar, really nice outdoor seating, nice padded barstools, thoughtfully decorated and bar seating inside. The food was good, but the place was terribly understaffed, no greetings. As best we could tell there was one server, one bartender. The chalk sign by the door said “Masters” so we mistakenly thought there’d be a TV with the Masters Golf Tournament on it, nope. So we asked, apparently others had as well. A few minutes later, the bartender was overheard complaining loudly to our server “there’s some old ladies asking about the masters”. We were sitting 6 feet away. (We were the only 3 old ladies in our 50’s in the place) A few minutes later the bartender walked by our table announcing “ if another person says a word about the Masters to me that’s going to be it!” So RUDE! I said as she passed, wow, there’s a whole bar right there” she stated “yes I know I run it!” She was rude and proud of it. She did approach the table and ask how my aunt liked her margarita, my aunt said it was good just so much ice there was hardly any liquid. The bartender then became argumentative and barked “well you get the same amount of alcohol no matter how much liquid is in the glass! Then she walked off. Just wow! The level of rude and unprofessional is like nothing I’ve ever seen. Clearly this lady was angry to turn on the TVs, angry to change the channel, vents to her coworkers in front of customers about her customers and is dominant so her demeanor will spread. To top it off it took over 10 minutes to get a white claw when there were no more than 6 ?customers total in the building. It took over 25 minutes for the $15 margarita to arrive while overwhelmed bartender bustled around as if a bus load of 200 people had just arrived, again 6 customers, maybe 8? in total were there on this lazy Sunday afternoon at 2 pm. In one hour and 20 min. this bar sold our whole group 2 drinks, good luck with that math in a bar setting. It took an hour and 20 min to get served, checked out and leave. Hopefully this woman owns this business and is free to run off customers as she chooses. If not, the owner and the customers certainly...