Harry's Irish Pub — Restaurant in Santa Ana

Let me start by saying this place is pretty cool. Hole in the wall, dive bar type of thing. Musics always good, drinks are cheap and service is usually friendly and on top of it. We’ve been here dozens of times and the pool tables are usually open or there isn’t a long wait either. However, our last visit might be our last time.

We arrived at around 10pm on Saturday night. It was mostly empty except for some regulars and our friends were already playing pool. We joined them and ordered drinks at the bar. The manager (older gentleman) carded us, which had never happened. We’re not regulars but we’ve been here many times so I thought he had recognized us. Not a problem; we gave him our IDs and he took a couple minutes looking at them. Then he took them under a lamp which we thought was odd. All this time we were just standing there watching him analyze our IDs, it was a little awkward to see how long he actually took. Usually when we get carded, it’s a quick glance or they take a few seconds and hand them back. I don’t want to assume but the manager did seem intoxicated. Again, not an issue to us. Finally, he handed them back and worked on our drinks.

An hour goes by and we’re playing pool and having drinks. A gentleman walks in and starts flogging one of the bar tenders. I found it funny, others were confused. It must be a thing here, I am not sure. Again, wasn’t an issue to us. I guess that’s the environment here. It’s close to 1am, us and our friends close out our tabs. The manager scans our debit cards which he had held the whole night and gives them back to us, we sign and exit the door.

We find the bar tender that was gone for an hour outside smoking with the gentleman that was flogging her earlier. She approaches us and firmly asks if we payed our tabs. We all say we all closed out. As we’re driving off, she approaches my friends car, but they were driving off already. Not sure what was about.

We drive across the street to the In N Out. We begin ordering food at the speaker box and bar manager catches up to us and hands us a tab! Right at our car window while we’re ordering food! He says “you guys didn’t pay your tabs!”. First off, never approach someone’s car window at 1am. I can only imagine how this would’ve ended poorly in a rough neighborhood. Second off, how are you going to chase a car down, whether they paid or not? I calmly explained to him that we paid, that even handed my card back, and signed the receipt. Our tab was $30 and the tab he was handing us was for $60 and it had drinks that nobody ordered. He said 3 more times that we had to pay and I repeated myself 3 more times explaining that this wasn’t our tab and that we paid already. I wasn’t about to pay for someone else’s tab. This encounter not only frightened us but also was incredibly unprofessional and cringey to say the least. He finally left, walked back to the bar, I’m assuming.

The cashier taking our order finally spoke up and asked if we were safe and if we needed help, which was very thoughtful. He too was off put by the whole situation that had just happened. He took our order and we paid and asked us again if we were okay. We were a little shook but overall fine, mostly confused about what had just happened. We will never be going back to...

Love this place. Sleepy little dive bar with hands down, the most hilarious K.J. on Wednesday nights. Service is always fast and happy to see you. Pool tables are always clean and ready to go. Only complaint. I really wish they served pitchers. Easily my favorite place to spend a...

Went to Harry's and don't know if they have food or not bit the Service was awesome. Also has karaoke every Wednesday. MC Bess is AMAZING as a KJ! Great personality, very caring a out everyone there and runs a great rotation with great sound! Will...