The Irish Times Pub and Restaurant:
Great Food, Great Entertainment and Most of All, Great Location

By CATHOLINE BUTLER

The Irish Times Irish Pub and Restaurant is a beautiful old heritage building situated in a prime location on Government Street in the downtown core area of Victoria, B.C.

The building was built in 1886 by architect Francis Mawson Rattenbury, one of the most famous characters in the history of Victoria. He also built the Parliament Buildings, Government House and The Empress Hotel.

NELS DUGSTAD the general manager of the Irish Times Pub in Victoria, B.C. is surrounded by staff members: Jamie Price, Patrick Dunkley and Emily Campbell.

The building was a bank, an insurance company and a Ralph Lauren building prior to becoming The Irish Times. The pub is beautifully furnished in keeping with the building, with rich dark wood, stained glass, and an Irish decor. There is also a patio outside the pub which can seat an additional 75 people.

On my recent visit to Victoria, I stopped into The Irish Times to speak with Nels Dugstad, the general manager at the establishment, to ask him about the weekly entertainment, food menu and future plans at the Times.

Nels said, “We’ve been open since September 17, 2004, so we’re coming into our second year of operation. As far as live music is concerned, we try to get as authentic Celtic music as often as we can.

“We have world-renowned fiddler and local favourite Daniel Lapp, who does a traditional session on Sunday evenings. We also serve a traditional carvery dinner every Sunday that alternates from lamb, to roast pork, to roast beef.

THE PATIO at the Irish Times Pub and Restaurant on Government Street in Victoria.

“Daniel starts off his session playing with a couple of musicians and then he brings together a lot of his students and fellow musicians from Victoria. It’s always a great evening.

“On Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, we usually have solo acts. Rob Thompson plays here a lot, along with Paul O’Brien who is fantastic. He is a very authentic, Celtic folky player. John Bottomley is a well-known singer and songwriter, and Vancouver fiddler, Moritz Behm, is also a big attraction. We also have Kitangus, a west-coast Celtic band. They are very up-beat, high energy and they play for us a lot on the week-ends.

“Jeremy Walsh is a local singer, songwriter, who has just recorded an album. He actually had Van Morrison’s producer here in town playing with him. We also have John Reynolds who plays here when he is not touring with the Irish Rovers.

“So that basically fills up our month pretty quick. We don’t get a lot of new acts, but we have had Shanneyganock, a group from Newfoundland, who are produced by Great Big Sea, and they played here.”

Nels and owner/publican Matt MacNeil made a trip to Ireland to check-out some of the traditional pub fare, but they didn’t get a lot of food ideas from the Emerald Isle. In fact, they came back and put together their own unique pub style menu.

“We do have the traditional pub-style fare on our menu,” said Nels, “such as corned beef and cabbage. We have a great lamb stew and our fish and chips are done in a very simple batter of beer and flour. We have home smoked salmon, home-made country-style paté, not so creamy, but the coarser paté with our own home-made wheaten soda bread.

“We do our spinach and artichoke crock, which we actually bake in our wheaten bread...it’s wonderful. We are very fortunate to have such a wide choice of seafood on our menu. We have a daily feature of seafood every single day. Halibut and chips is one of our best sellers.

“ We also have a happy oyster hour every day between 3 PM to 6 PM which we sell for .69¢ per oyster on the half shell. Last month, we sold 2,700 oysters. It’s become very well known in town that we have oysters at that time now. We serve lots of burgers, halibut burgers, a great home-made lamb burger, and a sirloin burger.

“We changed our menu two weeks ago, and one of our signature items that has become our number one seller right now is our chicken club wrap. We make our own potato flat bread, we grill it on the griddle, then we roll up the chicken, with tomato and bacon and serve it as a wrap. It has become very popular with our guests.”

There are no plans at present to open another Irish Times Restaurant and Pub. Matt MacNeil’s key to success has always been finding that key location, just like the perfect location in Victoria.

The afternoon that I dropped into the Irish Times there were cruise ships anchored in the harbour which brought an additional 10,000 tourists into the city for the day. The patio and interior of the pub were full and the only seat available to sit talk with Nels was in the two-seater O’Hagan snug, and that was at 2:30 in the afternoon!

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The Irish Times Restaurant and Pub is located at 1200 Government Street in Victoria. For more information call: (250) 383-7775, or visit www.irishtimespub.ca.

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