O'Connells is all set for Monday's 'into the unknown'
"I've missed the people, the chat, about sport and anything else going on around town," says Alan O'Connell. "And I know from meeting customers in the street that they're missing it too, big time. I've been asked thousands of times, 'when are you opening?'."
Well, all things staying on plan, it's next Monday afternoon at 4pm. For Alan and his sister Karen, it's something they're looking forward to with both delight and apprehension. "It's completely unknown, we'll be starting without any idea of how it's actually going to work out," says Karen, who manages the back office end of things in the pub as well as in the family's insurance business.
The closure did give Alan a space to deal with a range of maintenance and refurbishment matters. The place is sparkling, and apart from the Covid-necessary reminder signage and other precautions it looks brilliantly ready to return to the very busy pub that it has been for many years.
Except, of course, it won't be business as usual. Can't be. The stools are missing from the bar, the tables have been repositioned to cater for 2-metre distancing, and there will be limitations on numbers. "There won't be any music at weekends, and the TV volume has to be kept low so that people don't raise their voices while chatting," Alan says. "How we're going to manage all that remains to be seen. We're still juggling tables around to see what will work. It's very hard."
What is clear is that both the pub and its customers are in this together, and if they want the place to stay open the patrons will have to play their part. "The really worst thing would be that the pubs are shut down again, so it's up to all of us to make sure that doesn't happen. We all have to step up to the situation."
In an industry where there are traditionally many part-time staff, it's also a bit of a challenge to get back all their regular people — "a lot of them have moved on to other things since the lockdown in March." With table service only, two people alone will be needed just to take orders and monitor the numbers and activity while the drinks are pulled behind the bar. "People are just going to have to be patient, I think it'll take us a week or so to get the hang of it. I just hope we'll get a good steady trade and get into the rhythm of it again."
Apart from missing the business and the customers, Alan says the pub missed out big on one other thing, Liverpool lifting the Premier League trophy. "We're very well known as the Liverpool pub in town, and we've been waiting ten years for them to win. We were on a beano, they won the Champions League the year before and we were all ready for the craic in the pub when they lifted the Premier cup, and then we missed it because of Covid. But they'll lift it again." Alan also sponsors the Kilcullen Soccer Club Senior Team, and he says it will be good to have all that back. "I want that back."
Both Alan and Karen paid tribute to the Kilcullen pubs for 'sticking to the rules' during the pandemic, and Karen also has good words for the Vintners Federation for their lobbying work which resulted in next Monday's opening — "they were fantastic."
Now it's a case of getting the doors open, and keeping fingers crossed. Opening times will be 4pm Monday through Thursday, 3pm Friday, and 12.30pm Saturdays and Sundays, with strict 11.30pm closing every night.
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