Moving with the times in Kilkenny
Liam & Anthony Morrisson outside the family pub they run in Kilkenny
Christy’s Bar is somewhat of an institution in Kilkenny. It’s a go-to spot for young adults, in part due to its huge beer garden. Anthony’s parents Josie and Christy Morrisson ran the bar until Christy passed away in 2019. Now their three sons Anthony, Liam and Brian run the show.
“We are fourth-generation publicans,” says Anthony. “My mother Josie’s father had a bar in Ballyhale, South Kilkenny and that’s where I was born and bred. My mother met my father Christy Morrisson in the late 50s. In 1984 there was a bit of a micro recession and they decided they would move from the country to the town. They moved into this bar in Patrick St in Kilkenny in 1987. They sold the pub in Ballyhale for €87k and bought this pub for €83k.”
The move from Ballyhale into Kilkenny turned out to be a shrewd one. Christy’s is the first and last pub out of Kilkenny on the Waterford Road and they are a seven-minute walk to Kilkenny Castle. “That’s the centre of the universe in Kilkenny,” explains Anthony.
Anthony’s mother Josie still works in the pub every day. “She mightn’t be serving drinks now because it’s all about whiskey and cocktails rather than pints and she was the pint of Guinness lady. We use her for crowd control mainly,” he says with a grin. “She can spot trouble before it starts. We’ve a very small pub but we have a very large footprint when you take in the beer garden and the snooker room.”
Growing up in the pub
The original part of the pub is of traditional style and there is a big focus on horse racing which you will often find showing on the TVs
Growing up above the pub meant that work and family life lines were often blurred with his parents “beholden to the pub and the customers” all of their lives.
“The only place the customers couldn’t go was the family bathroom,” explains Anthony. “You could find customers in your sitting room, and if there were the afters of a funeral, the widow might be brought upstairs to one of the bedrooms to be consoled. I think there was even a child born at one stage,” he recalls. He now lives away from the pub and has instilled boundaries between the bar and his family life and ensures his staff also receive a good work/life balance.
“This is not a criticism of my own father but he would have never seen me play sport because he was in the bar seven days a week whereas my brother and I would have a very different dynamic. There’s always one of us there so rather than us both being there, we separate it. I have time to go training and do things with the kids and he has time to go and walk his dogs. I have two other full timers and two part timers and we try to work it that everyone gets their needs met. That helps with the longevity,” he explains.
Traditional pub extended
The original part of the pub is of traditional style but in recent years they have extended the premises to include a snooker room and a huge beer garden. “It’s a small traditional pub that holds 80 people and a beer garden which takes up to 400, the lawn area that holds another 200, the Green Room (aka Snooker Room) will hold about 50 and the Hatch that will hold about 20 so all in all there is capacity for over 700 plus people on site.” Horse racing and snooker are a big focus for the regular patrons so you will always find racing on the telly and the pool room in use.
Covid rejigged their model in terms of how busy they find themselves with the busy periods now between 3pm-10pm. “Pre-Covid the busy times of the day were between 7pm-1am and I wouldn’t have been out of the pub until 2.30/3am. Now I’d be home an hour after closing most nights. It’s improved our lifestyles,” says Anthony.
It’s interesting to note this change in busy periods that has come about and although Anthony has noticed it since Covid restrictions have passed, it’s probably more due to changing lifestyles and priorities of a new generation. Anthony says that the 18-25 year olds are quite content to go home by 11pm so they can go to the gym the next morning. “I had 17 lads from a team here yesterday and what I find is that they are coming in for a few drinks and getting a pizza from the pizza truck and then they head off home. The customers that continue the night down the town are my age – lads that are married with kids and are the ones out for the night.”
They employ Jack Walsh of Blásta Pizza to come and set up his pizza truck in the beer garden at weekends and this has been a real solution to providing a food offering without having to modify the whole premises.
Instagram era
The beer garden holds up to 400 and is popular with groups of young people
It would be understandable if publicans were getting nervous about the fact that young people are not drinking as much but Anthony doesn’t see it that way. “You have to have a certain spend from every journey. You have your good strong regular customers who will come in for a few drinks four to five days a week. You can pre-budget what they are going to spend. The younger crowd – they might have €20/€30 to spend. They would spend €10 on a cocktail even though they only had €30 to spend. They’ll have 2/3 of them and then they will sit there with nothing in front of them for the rest of the night and they don’t mind that. They would prefer the nice fancy drink as they are image-conscious and like to post photos with their drinks. They’ll get one of those fancy fishbowl gins as the value for them is in the experience. Getting drunk is not part of it anymore. It’s about visuals,” he says.
Non-alcoholic drinks are of course on the rise too. They have had to redesign the bar to fit more zero-zero taps in and now they serve Carlsberg 00, Heineken 00 and Guinness 00, three zero gins and two zero vodkas. They also have a zero spiced rum and a nosecco on offer to fulfil this new demand.
Anthony has experienced an interesting new phenomenon as the rise of zero drinks takes hold. “People want zero-zero glasses to go with the drink because they can’t be seen to be drinking. Hurlers want people to know they are not drinking. The pregnant woman wants the zero glass because they are drinking a zero gin and don’t want people to think they are drinking alcohol. People are very conscious of that,” he explains.
Cigarette machine
The Green Room at Christy’s being used for a whiskey tasting
Another change that has come about in recent years is the disappearance of cigarette machines in pubs, illustrating that the government’s efforts to make Ireland smoke-free are working. Anthony says they wouldn’t even consider having one now. “I got rid of my cigarette machine November two years ago. Last weekend we had a busy few days with a few football teams in and a party and only one person out of maybe 600/700 people here over the weekend asked for a vending machine. There is no value in it now. If I was to have a cigarette machine, I would have to pay €1,500 for a machine and it wouldn’t pay that now.”
As habits change, businesses need to respond to these and change accordingly. Following the publication of the NTE Taskforce Report, Kilkenny City was successful in being designated by the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media as one of nine pilot towns and cities in the country that will prepare and implement an action plan setting out a range of interventions to support the coordinated development of the night time economy.
Anthony sits on the NTE Panel for Kilkenny representing the hospitality sector and they are looking at ways to modify how business is conducted in the city. “There are lots of business people like hairdressers and shopkeepers on the panel too and we’re trying to look at the city past 6 o’clock. As pubs, we are always open but other businesses close by 5/6pm and we’re looking at the likes of people being able to get their hair done or their eyes tested at 9pm. It’s not all about drinking and socialising. In tourist locations abroad, there is a 24 hr economy. We need to offer more here,” he says.
Change of attitude
Anthony has a real can-do attitude and a positive outlook, which is why this is such a successful business. He mentors young people and has given a lot of younger people their first jobs. He likes everyone to feel welcome in his bar and for there to be a good atmosphere. However he made a decision along that way that he would run the pub his way and change how things were done in the past.
“I was brought up being told that the man on the other side of the counter was the most important man in the building – not the staff or your family. I don’t tolerate bad behaviour. I enjoy this job but my mentality has changed. I won’t be bullied by the customers so I’m in control and not the customer. I have a young pub – a starter pub, a family pub that goes with you on the journey. We are a bit of an institution. I’ve seen full circles of families born, reared and died here. And we want to keep doing that but maybe a bit more on our terms in the future,” he says
