Skin in the game

Noel Anderson is the main man behind the newly named Grand Slam Bars Group. In partnership with a number of ex-international Irish rugby players, Anderson is building a small empire of superbly located bars in the capital. He spoke candidly to Fionnuala Carolan about his rocky route to success and how he sometimes has to pinch himself when he considers his lot

A number of unusual events culminated in the success of Noel Anderson and the creation of Grand Slam Bars. Firstly, back at the start of his career he was falsely accused of involvement with the IRA by TV3 News. A court case that followed resulted in him receiving a sum of money that paid off old debt and launched a new business.

Secondly, he was a guest on the Ian Dempsey Breakfast show during the recession to talk about “having the balls” to open a new business during a recession and he gained considerable custom from this exposure which kept his business going when others were failing.

And thirdly, he was the only Irish publican with the foresight to seek insurance against Coronavirus in February 2020 and managed to obtain a policy from FBD Insurance to cover the same. When they tried to renege, it resulted in another court case and a subsequent payout that helped him secure his third business.

Aside from these bizarre happenings, he is now running five successful businesses with some of Ireland’s best-known rugby stars because he seems to have bags of grit, determination and belief in himself and what he can achieve.

Last month it was announced that Anderson and his four rugby star partners, Rob Kearney, Dave Kearney, Jaime Heaslip and Sean O’Brien were buying McSorley’s of Ranelagh for a cool €5.5 million. The group also announced a new name – Grand Slam Bars – that would cover the four other pubs they own together – Bridge 1859, Lemon & Duke, Little Lemon and The Blackrock. Buying McSorley’s seems like a natural progression for the group. “I literally got a call out of the blue from Lisney and they asked me if I was interested in buying McSorley’s in Ranelagh,” explains Anderson about how it all transpired. “A meeting was set up and I went to AIB. They were playing ball as The Bridge was very underleveraged at the time so I was able to make that happen.” “We have five pubs now. We were slow and steady with the first two and then grew to five quickly over the last couple of years. We got The Blackrock just after Covid and then an opportunity came with Little Lemon when a unit became available beside Lemon & Duke. We bought the Bridge coming out of recession so McSorley’s is the only one we bought at the height of the market. You don’t say no to Ranelagh.”

The one thing all these bars have in common is that they are all in fantastic locations. “That’s the absolute key,” says Anderson. “There are so many pubs that are quiet all the time. Like last night I brought my girls to the Ireland v Greece match in the Aviva and the area was busy on a Tuesday. It’s all about location, location, location.”

Where it began

He was an early starter and a natural entrepreneur taking on businesses when his counterparts were freshmen in college. His journey has involved plenty of ups and downs but luckily none of these downs has deterred him from pressing ahead with his plans. “It started with me leasing the Grafton Lounge on my own and then one day Rob Kearney expressed an interest in having a pub and I thought that having a pub with a couple of rugby lads near the Aviva would be something. We are good friends now but we became friends through the business. It was myself and Rob and then he brought in Dave Kearney, Jamie Heaslip and Sean O’ Brien. I had never met those lads before we bought the Bridge and now I’d be very close to them all.” The Bridge is 10 years old this month and they are having a little party to celebrate the milestone. “We’re going to launch a 10yr old whiskey and have a free bar and a bit of entertainment. It’s important to mark the occasion that in those ten years, we have built all this,” says Anderson.

Starting young

Anderson learned a lot in his early twenties about business and life in general with a number of ventures, some that worked out and some that didn’t. He says he was never afraid of making risky decisions, but that they were generally controlled decisions. “I served my apprenticeship when I was 17 in The Blue Haven in Rathfarnham and the owners of The Blue Haven bought Revels in Rathfarnham Village so I was moved down there.” While working in Revels, Anderson and his best friend Keith Darragh got the idea to take a lease on another pub in Rathfarnham Village called The Sarah Curran or also known as The Rathfarnham House. They invested a bit of money in creating a music venue upstairs. “Some of the first gigs were really successful which lulled us into a false sense of security. We had booked Republic of Loose and the place was rocking and we thought we had made it. Then we booked Kíla for St Patrick’s Day and it bombed. Like how does Kíla bomb on St Patrick’s Day? How is that even possible? Instead, we should have spent the money downstairs. Eventually we turned Sarah’s back into functions but we had dug too much of a hole for ourselves and we were under a bit of pressure.”

TV3 case

Some of this pressure was due to one of the unusual events we alluded to earlier that happened while they were running the Sarah Curran.

Unannounced TV3 arrived on site one day and accused them of being involved with the IRA. Anderson explains what happened: “TV3 news came into the pub with the cameras rolling and my business partner Keith was behind the counter and asked him what we had to do with laundering money for the IRA. I got a call and I was like ‘what?’. So at 5.30pm and 6.30pm that day they ran as headline news pictures of our pub, pictures of hotels in town, pictures of the Northern Ireland Bank robbery, people running around with M16s, boxes of evidence to imply they took them out of our pub. They apologised the next evening on the news but the word was out that we were the local IRA pub.” Where did that come from we wondered? “We’re really not sure. We were only renting the building. It was very much sensationalist journalism back then.” “We were already struggling for cashflow and this was just a nail in the coffin. I remember walking into the Orchard in Rathfarnham and distinctly heard someone say, “There’s the guy from the IRA”. You couldn’t make it up. I’m from a strong Garda background with my Dad being an an ex-chief superintendent and at the time my brother was in Templemore training to be a guard so it was a huge blow to my family. We sued TV3 but it went on for years. We ended up having to liquidate that business. So I lost my job, all the staff lost their jobs. I got audited by the Revenue on the back of it. It was a horrendous experience.”

New start

On the back of that nightmare, he remembers one particularly tough day he endured and how his family got him through it. “I couldn’t tell this story for years without getting upset,” he admits. “I was so broke – broker than I ever was after that experience. I got a call from the Flynn’s who had the Abberley Court Hotel in Tallaght and they were looking for a general manger. So I was going for the interview but the toes were coming out of my shoes. My Dad saw my shoes and said we need to bring you into Heather’s in town to get shoes for this interview and the whole way in in the car I was wondering how was I going to buy them as I had no money. My Dad got out of the car and gave me 50 quid and I was in floods of tears walking in”. Anderson got that job and worked for the Flynn family for a number of years eventually becoming operations manager over their other premises McGowans in Churchtown and the Church in Mary Street. “I oversaw those three venues but then the recession started kicking in around 2008. And if truth be told they had probably extended themselves a bit too much on the property side. I figured they weren’t going to need me anymore and I was probably tired by then. I was only 25/26 and I’d never travelled and never had any weekends off. I always liked the idea of working on the other side so I became a rep for Richmond Marketing for a couple of years as a business developer. Liam Ryan [MD of Richmond] was a really good mentor and he’s a great friend of mine still.”

In the meantime, The TV3 case was still rumbling along in the background. “They called us for a settlement hearing so we put on our best suits and filled two briefcases with newspapers and we rocked into the Four Courts like two shiny pennies trying to look like we didn’t need this money and if truth be told we needed every penny. We got roughly €70,000 and I paid my Dad back €10,000 and bought myself a nice watch. Nowadays you could receive hundreds of thousands from something like that but I didn’t want to put my family through a big court case.”. He used the rest of that money to start afresh by leasing The Grafton Lounge. “It was in a really good location. It had one door, one bar and I could run it myself. It was tough at times and there were loads of times were I nearly missed a payment. What saved me was that Ian Dempsey brought me on his show for a thing called ‘Start Ups’ in the middle of the recession. He asked if there was anyone mad enough to open a pub in the recession? My cousin was going out with the producer and she thought of me. After the interview he played, Jamiroquai’s Virtual Insanity, which is what people thought of me! But that exposure gave us a couple of grand turnover lift a week that got us through that time,” he remembers.

LVA days

As he got more established in business he joined the Licenced Vintners Association and became the youngest chair of the LVA at just 38. He says that himself and the committee worked morning, noon and night during that time to try to find solutions for their members during an unprecedented time. “It got very dark at times and I couldn’t see any way out. The first round of supports from government were awful but the second round were really good so that saved businesses.” “And then the other thing that happened during Covid was that I had taken an insurance policy out against Covid with FBD and they reneged. I took it out two weeks before Covid hit here. I saw what was going on in Milan and if they can close down bars there they could do it here too. I wasn’t hoodwinking anyone. I asked if they were covering the Coronavirus and they said they were having a meeting and after it they said it was good news, they were covering pubs but not covering restaurants,” he says. “I got a letter saying that my policy covers this yet I was still dragged through the High Court. Myself and two other publicans ended up in a High Court test case during Covid but they didn’t have their policies in a letter.” The pay out from this court case paid for The Blackrock, the group’s fourth pub, which was opened towards the end of Covid. “When we first went in there, Blackrock village was dead but it’s come alive again. There is Big Mike’s, Daata and loads of coffee shops. The more the merrier. I like to think we triggered that as someone has to take a leap,” he says.

Five-year plan

Presently they have a nice spread across good areas – Ranelagh, Blackrock, Ballsbridge and Grafton Street and they have tailored plans for all the businesses. “For Little Lemon we’re driving lunch trade and what we’re doing there is we run it as a restaurant and if you want to have a party you can come in and take it over at 9pm. Lemon & Duke is doing well and there are plans to pedestrianise areas around there so that will work well for us. The Bridge is in a good place as The RDS is going through a major redevelopment so that will be good for us. Ballsbridge is the gift that keeps on giving with the RDS, Aviva and plenty of hotels. We want to continue to grow The Blackrock as a local pub. We sponsor Blackrock Rugby Club and keep building that into the community quietly all the time. We will keep training the staff for good staff retention.”

As for the newest venture McSorley’s, they just need to build on its already strong reputation. They are currently in the middle of a revamp, adding a kitchen, an accessible toilet and giving the place a general refresh. “We need to keep growing here, especially the day trade as well as the amazing night trade that we have. We are building a new kitchen so that will push that side of things that it didn’t have before. If people are looking to book in one pub we can offer another pub if that is booked. We can cross-sell now.” Looking back on his career so far, he doesn’t regret much and says that he doesn’t do it for the money. “I’m not obsessed with money and I never was. I enjoy what I do. You have to take risks and I have done that. I just look at some things and I know I can make it work. I know exactly where we are going with this one and it will probably be Paddy’s Day next year before we have our full vision. It’s going to take time and then people will know what we are trying to achieve here but it’s all going in the right direction.”