O’Briens

Great pub and excellent restaurant upstairs. I had the charcuterie plate to start and a rib eye for my main… both were delicious. I also had a sticky toffee pudding for dessert which was moist and moreish :-) Would come back here anytime.

Have you ever noticed that sometimes locals choose to latch onto the oddest places to hang out iat?
Well, this O’Brien’s is just that. I used to live in these-​here parts and I noticed that a lot of my neighbours would spend a lot of time hanging out together in O’Brien’s sandwich bar. I think Kevin with the Jack Russell who I think everyone around here knows or recognises is the ring-​leader if you need an ‘in’.
Ciara K is right about O’Brien’s, they do have that ‘je né sais quoi’ when it comes to success with sandwich shops. I think it’s down to the fact that you always get exactly what you expect. Unlike a Spar or Centra roll, which may be prepared in different and mysterious ways every time you order. With way too much cheese one day and way too little mayo the next. At O’Brien’s the portion and recipe will always be identical. I think this is kind of a good thing, especially when I think about how many weird rolls I’ve gotten in other delis over the years.
Frankly, I’m not crazy about O’Brien’s but I do think they have the best chicken tikka around and the coffee ain’t too shabby neither.

O Briens. Blah.
Plain breads, stuffed with plain fillings, makes for a pretty plain lunch. To be honest I see little difference between O Briens and the delis in Spar or Centra.
But O Briens seem to have a winning formula. There’s one on almost every street in the city centre, and indeed in all of the cities in the country. And O Briens have recently set their sights on world domination, reaching as far as Australia, China, Germany, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Taiwan, and Thailand. Pretty impressive for an Irish sandwich bar.
They now do soups and smoothies too, and they often have special deals like a coffee and sandwich for a fiver.

There’s only one sandwich I like in O’Brien’s. It’s the chicken and bacon triple decker (yes, it’s big) and it’s very good. Otherwise, I make a good one with my own fillings that’s good. Thanks to them having Ballymaloe relish, mmmm. Apart from these two, I’m afraid that I’ve fallen out of love with O’Brien’s sandwiches. They’re just so expensive for what they are. The sandwich makers don’t show any love for the skill of sambo-​creation and the anticipation is always more than the final product for me. Shame.
Although I’m being harsh; they also now do very nice smoothies and they do «shambos» — how can a shamrock shaped sandwich not be good???

O’briens is a big chain of sandwich bars that are located I’d say in almost every town in the country.
It’s mostly sandwiches they serve, but over the years they have branched into soups, wrappos, and giant triple decker sandwiches too.
The staff are usually quite nice in the Baggot St branch, but they change so often that it’s hard to keep track!
If you’re starving at lunchtime, then head straight for here as the sandwiches are huge and very filling. They serve extra thick cut bread, but you can request regular bread if being bloated isn’t your thing.
I think it’s way over priced — you could easily spend € 6 on a regular sandwich. That’s too much if you ask me!