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Town Clock to open again in 4 weeks time

Posted Tuesday, September 23, 2008

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Town Clock

As we said in a recent article, the Town Clock has a Closed for Refurbishment notice on it.

We now hear that it is to open again in four weeks time.

It is going to get a new look and concentrate more on food.

It will no longer be the place to go for people to have a late night drink to disco music on Fridays and Saturdays.

Too Expensive

The cost is too high now.

The cost of a late licence went up from €210 to €410 a couple of months back and so the Town Clock had to put on a door charge of €4 for entry to cover the extra cost.

They also had all the bouncers and staff to pay.

As people tended not to really start streaming in till about one o'clock on both nights and another law cut the time they could serve alcohol till by half an hour to two o'clock, I would assume it made it very difficult to make enough money to justify it in that hour and Friday and on Saturday night.

Food and Music

They are going to concentrate more on the food side now.

Also, they are intending to have traditional music on a Saturday night like the Celtic Ramblers.

I think this makes sense for them.

Where Next?

There is talk now that The Waterfront and/or the Claddagh (ex-Bar-A-Cuda / Eggman / Terry's) will now go for late licences to fill the gap left by the Town Clock.

I don't know how true this is but it sounds a good idea for them.

One would not think that there would be room for two of the same type in the town, though.

I would say that if the were to both go for the Disco market then there wouldn't be enough to go around.

The Waterfront

It would make sense for The Waterfront to go for the Disco crowd as you would see many of their customers heading up to the Town Clock late on at the weekends, in fact, more so than anywhere else.

Unlike the Town Clock, The Waterfront had the early crowd and so it would make sense, now that the Town Clock has shifted focus, for The Waterfront to get the late licence and to keep its customers longer - and perhaps attract a few new ones who used to go up to the Town Clock.

A good strategy might be to make it free entry before a certain time and make a charge to those who wanted in after that time, say midnight or half past midnight.

The Claddagh

I have no way of knowing whether the Claddagh is looking at late licences but it would make a bit of sense too - but only if they went after a different market.

The market that might be good for them is the ex-Hair of the Dog / Anchor Bar market.

When Mike used to get good bands there it used to be thronging on a Saturday night - even though it was the most out-of-the-way bar in the town.

The Claddagh is perhaps the most central and would probably get a bigger crowd than the Anchor got.

Great Layout

It even has the stage and when world famous Henry McCullough was here for last year's BeatlesFest he thought it was a fantastic location and layout for bands.

The old Prospect used to put on bands successfully.

Now, there is nowhere in the town that puts on full bands.

Indeed many of the people of the town used to go out to McGrory's in Culdaff to see good acts and it got great crowds for a town that size.

However, it is only conjecture as far as the Waterfront and Claddagh are concerned but it would seem to make sense for them to go for the late night crowd - but only if they target different markets rather than look to both target the disco market.

We shall see soon how it all pans out.