The Mercantile Bar

Mercantile tavern, on the large thoroughfare called Dame Street, is a well known pub, for the locals and the visitors. It has become the meet point for many people from South America and Spain because in one of the many spaces of this pub you can find salsa music and lot of people dancing it weekends.
The pub food that they serve is good with a «drinking purpose», good portions of fried food to accompany the drinks in those hours of the evening when the stomach roars and the diet purpose fails after few pints.

Good food has the football on Tele and a decent atmosphere, good place to start a night. sometimes a bit family orientated with children still in at seven but apart from that good laugh… town prices for a pint 5 – 20 a guiness so not as bad as temple bar and a bit better then the foggy dew…

Regular place, nothing to write home about. Decent beer, pleasant service, lousy food. The one thing that I liked was original décor. Rest is did not convince me to come back, though we’ve had there a nice evening.

Great place to go to watch the football, especially Arsenal where the Dublin supporters club is located! Plenty of tv’s to watch from so no bad view in the place.
Drinks are quite expensive, € 5.80 for a pint of Bulmers is crazy even for the city centre. The bar food is quite nice with a nice selection and they have plenty of staff around.
Place is absolutely massive inside! Always have a spot free to sit either upstairs or downstairs.
Toilets are clean for whenever nature calls.

Great liquor selection. Convenient location. Nice traditional décor. However service was lousy. Bartenders too busy in their own chit chat to serve customers. Light pour. Not as ordered. Overpriced — belvedere and a Guinness for $ 13.90. Next!!!

Good bar & location! Visited last night with friends however I was very disappointed that they did not have any Gluten free beer!

I have to give it 4 stars although I didn’t think I would.
For some reason I’ve been passionately avoiding this place on Friday and Saturday nights but when my friend organised his birthday drinks in here, complete with a reserved area, finger food, party hats and bubbly for everyone I had no choice. And oh, have I been converted. I loved the music, not what I expected at all. Think The Cure and Fleetwood Mac as opposed to Beyoncé and whatshisname.
There was a hostess who looked after us the whole night. She regularly checked in with us and made sure everyone was happy and there was no stranger danger as in: non-​party guests crowding our space and eating our food.
I take off 1 point for the bar service. We had special drink promos on that night and everyone had a wristband but they tried to sell us more expensive options the whole time. Not cool but overall a surprisingly great venue.

I have to admit that I have mixed feelings about the Mercantile Bar. The space is big — it just keeps going and going and going though when we arrived, all of the tables were reserved which seemed a bit odd to me. It was also very, very dark inside.
Not excited by the beer selection, I ordered a glass of white wine which was good but not like totally-​spectacular-​fireworks-​going-​off good. My friend ordered a mojito which looked cool in its tall glass but then I saw that there was crushed ice in her drink which is a big no-​no and I became less jealous of her mojito.
And just as we finished our first round, we got kicked off our table as the party who reserved it had arrived. Then we left. The end.

I like the Mercantile. Can be quiet despite it’s location which is not always a bad thing. Also, not the worst price for a pint considering it’s Temple Bar. Also if you go on a Sunday there’s free roast potatoes with your live entertainment!

My wife and I stayed for drinks and watched a World Cup Match. I only had drinks, but I can say the barman was a real pro — efficient, personal and fun. It there was a lot of street noise that made it hard to her the game, but I can’t hold that against the venue.

Nice big bar, staff were ok, music was hit and miss. Grand place during the day if u get it at a quiet time for a pint with a mate

Having been here before for food and thought it was ok I was utterly disapointed this time. My friend had the chicken sallad, the sallad looked like it had picked itself and then died and the chicken was dry. I had a burger where the vegetables didn’t taste of anything (tomato, sallad and red onion) and bun felt stale. The actual burger could have done with some seasoning and the fries with some flavour. That said, I did enjoy my side order of onion rings. Won’t be rushing back here for food…

Perfect place to end the night on a Friday (think they are open till 3:30am). Good people. Good drink. Cool place and location. Shout out to Wayne the bouncer! Such a joy to see.
Also popped in one Saturday afternoon for a game… and the bar area was packed. Which made my experience that more fun.

Very fun place to go dancing on a Saturday night and yet it’s not too fancy, people are friendly and the DJ is awesome.

Update: the Mercantile came up in conversation last night and my friend reminded me of the prices: € 5 for a shot of vodka and € 5.80 for a bottle of Heineken. Yeah. That’s definitely not going to happen again.

I have never been a fan of this place, it is a large and fairly generic Irish bar. I always find it far too hot and way to load. Last night was no exception, the music was just load enough to make conversion almost impossible.
So pints are fairly standard price for that part of the city, about the € 5.50. My friend got a vodka and cranberry and it came to the grand total of € 7.40.

This is a pretty cool place. It’s not the greatest for traffic flow but there’s a not way too many people, even on a Saturday night so that’s nice. It’s not empty, don’t get that idea, it’s just the right amount. There’s a few different areas and some play different music, which is nice if you’ve got some friends that want to dance to salsa type stuff while the rest want to just hang out and listen to other music. There are multiple bars as well, and the staff are pretty friendly. It has a cool, somewhat classy feel even though it’s really not that type of a place. I’ll definitely come back again.

From this Californian’s standpoint, The Mercantile is one of the most unique property’s on the planet… A former bank building in the popular Temple Bar area of Dublin. The place is massive with several bars, dining area, music locations and even a hotel. The staff is real and accommodating and the food is even very good!
When we checked into the hotel, I was anything but impressed, in fact had planned to leave in the morning and find another hotel, this was due in large part to the fact that the rooms are a bit dated. But after watching Martha run the front desk like an inspired conductor and being catered to by an amazing staff of accommodating and intuitive bartenders and servers, we decided to give it a go and honestly, it was such a fantastic experience the entire week we were there! The older room quickly became charming and the beds were actually very comfy!
Live music, great bars, excellent food, fabulous location… This is Dublin!

Last weekend I rounded up my friends and we were to meet in The Market Bar. Myself and my girlfriend arrived and had a drink while waiting for the rest. One of my friends arrived and joined us and we had a good aul’ natter waiting for everyone else to turn up. We started getting impatient after a while because no one other than the three of us had turned up. Next thing I know I get a phonecall,
«Ronan! Where in the name of all things awesome are you? We’re all here!» Confused, I said that I was there and didn’t see them. Where were they? The Mercantile! So we went there.
I have to say, I never start a night off in the Mercantile. I don’t really have a reason for it other than, I’ll usually start off a night in nice familiar surroundings only to wind up somewhere else entirely! That said, the Mercantile is a very nice place indeed! For starters, it’s split up into several sections. You’ve got the mini-​bar as I call it where they usually have a band of some sort playing a few tunes. The regular bar, where you’ll find people just chilling out over a few pints. The posh bar, where those who think they’re posh hang out and a basement… I don’t know what happens in the basement…
Every time I’ve been there I’ve always been impressed with the bar staff. Even when it’s busy they are smiling and quick to look after anyone who has decided that sobriety isn’t a good look for them. The drinks are poured well and served with a smile, what more could you ask for!
As atmospheres go, even when this place is completely packed, you can still move freely. It’s a casual spot where everyone seems to talk with everyone. Although, some of the nutballs you come across can really make your night go by quite strangely. My last visit involved having a man who was mostly made of beard, drank white wine and ranted about how butchers don’t make sausages like they used to…
Anyway, this place gets 5 stars for the following reasons:
1. It’s a great spot to meet up with your friends
2. The staff are friendly and the service is quick
3. The clientelle is varied and full of nuts!

I found myself here for about 10 minutes on Saturday, it was thronged and the music was blasting as apparently to have a late license in this town means you have to endure loud music and dark rooms.
There were some alcoves were couples sat. And various styles of music in each room, one of which was salsa and these amazing salsa dancers kept standing on my toes. They would not allow me walk by and didn’t apologise, oh the joys of drunken obliviousness and numbness of the nervous system.
Upstairs looked nice but it was sectioned off, has that Professor Henry Higgins style library room to it.
Definitely somewhere to go with a group and maybe be a bit tipsy prior.