"IRISH PUB THE DOLAN'S" (TEL 0172-80-9139) opened in Daikanmachi in Hirosaki on March 18th.

"The pub is a public house, and in Ireland and the UK it is positioned as the "third place" after home and office," said the owner, Kohei Narita.

After graduating from university, Mr. Narita had the experience of living in Ireland by taking advantage of working holidays, and the origin of the store name is the name of the pub he visited at home.

After returning to Japan, Mr. Narita returned to Hirosaki in 2013 after working as a sales representative for a trading company in Tokyo. He started helping out with his older brother's pub, "Robbin's Nest" (Omachi, Hirosaki City), and gradually began to want to have his own store.

It started in May 2015 to open a store. After finding a tenant and negotiating with the landlord, he said he wanted to support young people who love pubs and set new things, and waited until they were ready. "I learned later, but I'm really grateful to learn that a major school and retail store were visiting tenant negotiations during that time," Narita said.

The store area is about 23 tsubo. There are 45 seats. The interior design was commissioned by Victorian Craft, which specializes in the design and production of Irish Pub stores in Matsumoto City, Nagano Prefecture. "I asked a carpenter of my friend or a local contractor to do the construction. The Tsugaru craftsmen did their work quickly and politely. The result was 120% of the image," he said.

The drink menu offers four types of draft beer such as Guinness, Kilkenny (half pint = 500 yen, one pint = 900 yen), and a variety of bottled beers, cocktails, whiskeys (starting from 500 yen).

The food menu offers traditional Irish dishes such as fish and chips (850 yen), Guinness stew of pork (850 yen) and shepherds pie (700 yen), homemade pickles (320 yen), margherita (680 yen), mixed nuts ( There is also an izakaya menu such as 300 yen. Orders are cash-on-delivery, and drinks will be discounted by 100 yen until 19:00.

Regarding the future, Narita says, "I would like to establish a pub culture in Hirosaki." “The town of Limerick, where I lived in Ireland, had about half the population of Hirosaki, but had 200 pubs, where conversations such as “Today is faster than usual” and “Work was finished earlier” were exchanged on a daily basis. It may be similar to a public bath in Japan. We would like to make it a store where such conversation can be created.”

Business hours are from Sunday to Thursday = 16:00 to 2:30 the following day, and Friday, Saturday and the day before public holidays = 16:00 to 3:00 the next day.