Cork City’s JD Wetherspoon’s bar and restaurant will cease trading in the coming months as the sale of its Linen Weaver premises on Paul St nears completion.
The understands that staff at the Cork City pub were informed this week that the bar will cease trading by Christmas, with the new purchaser planning to close the premises for at least four months after the sale is completed.
The Linen Weaver was put on the market last year with a €2.25m price guide and was part of a €10m portfolio sell-off by the UK vintners group.
The portfolio also included the sale of regional Wetherspoon premises in Waterford, Galway, and Carlow.
The group’s Waterford premises closed in June, following its sale to the Causeway Group.
The understands that the Cork premises will stop trading as a Wetherspoons once the sale is completed.
The new purchaser of the bar and restaurant has not yet been confirmed.
Sources in the bar trade have suggested that it may not have been purchased by a publican and could be repurposed for other means, including residential.
The Linen Weaver pub on Cork City’s Paul St first opened in September 2015, employing 75 people.
The sale of the group’s regional properties was announced in October last year as it moved its focus to its Dublin premises following a national expansion more than a decade ago, which at one point saw it eye other locations across Cork, including Douglas.
In 2014, JD Wetherspoon PLC applied to change the use of a building at East Douglas St once home to PTSB and then Bank of Ireland to a licensed premises including a bar, food server and other facilities.
A first-floor kitchen and a staff room were also proposed, along with a beer garden to the rear of the premises.
Cork City Council sought further information on the request, however, the application was never completed.
Speaking at the start of this year, Tim Martin, founder and chairman of the pubs group told the there was “a high level of interest” in the four Irish Wetherspoons pubs put up for sale last October.
The group currently operates eight pubs in Ireland, six of which are in Dublin.
In 2021, JD Wetherspoon opened Keaven’s Port, its flagship pub and hotel on Dublin’s Camden St, marking the company’s single largest investment in its 41-year history, costing more than €27m.
The group operates around 800 pubs across Britain.