The Irish Bank Bar & Restaurant – San Francisco
We were having a pint at the Bank of Ireland before it became the Irish Bank Bar. It is a lovely place to pretend you’re snug in Dublin or Cork City. Because San Francisco is such an Irish town, you’ll likely hear some Irish brogue at the tables around you.
The Battle of the Banks
On March 17, 1997, The Bank of Ireland (Bar and Restuarant) in San Francisco, formally changed its name to The Irish Bank. This was based on an amicable settlement with the Bank of Ireland in Dublin, Ireland, following a 9 month legal battle. Mayor Willie Brown presided over the name change.
Fighting Irish
At the Bank of Ireland in San Francisco, you can order up a creamy pint of Guinness or a plate of smoked salmon. What you can’t do is bank.
That’s because this is a drinking institution, not a financial one. It is a downtown pub started about a year ago by Irishmen Chris Martin and Rory Connolly. When the real Bank of Ireland, the 200-year-old, massive bank based in Dublin heard about its namesake watering hole 5,000 miles to the west, it put in an order — to its lawyers.
“They are pursuing us, to say the least,” Martin said.
Legal letters have been flying back and forth since August. Rather than moving toward a settlement, the local innkeepers have further irked the bank and its minions — first by grabbing the Bank of Ireland domain name on the Internet, then by agreeing to rename only if they got paid $25,000 to cover “resignage. Our signs are gilded with gold,” Martin claimed. “We’ve also got $6,000 of menus and other paperwork printed.”
As Martin and Connolly see it, no one is likely to confuse the two institutions.
“The fact is, they have no registered office in America. They have no web site. They have an answering machine in New York,” Martin said.
“That’s not the case,” protested bank spokeswoman Eillis O’brien in Dublin. “We are a sizable business in the States. We have a substantial fund management business and also corporate treasury.
“It is interfering with the course of our business,” she insisted.
With the bank and “bank” at loggerheads, legal action seems the next step — though mindful of Irish sensibilities, the real bank is not eager to be seen leaning on a bar.
“It’s very amusing and all that,” sighed O’brien. “Our bank does not want to be in litigation with a publican.”
–Reprinted from the San Francisco Business Times, December 9, 1996
This is a great place for St Patrick’s Day if you like crowds. A great place any other day! – the Irishlass
Website: The Irish Bank Bar & Restaurant
The Irish Bank Bar & Restaurant
10 Mark Ln
San Francisco, CA 94108
(415) 788-7152
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