Firstly, this week I will look at the latest hostelry visited within the cornucopia of establishments within the Matthew Street enclave. The lineage of the very traditional Liverpool White Star can be traced back to the 1880’s and this is proved by a reference to the White Star Carvery and Bar within an 1887 Empire Theatre programme. It is named after the Titanic shipping owners White Star Line.
Apparently, the pub in those days remains relevantly unchanged from today, apart from the fact there used to be a back yard and there was living accommodation upstairs. Astoundingly there were no ladies lavatories in the building until 1987, the wafer thin justification for this was due to the premise of endeavouring to discourage visits from the large number of prostitutes working in the city post Second World War up to the late 1980’s.
After the war, a punter called Mr Quinn purchased five pubs in the city, including this one and on all that quintet he inscribed the word Quinns on the front windows. To a degree that name stuck to the level that the good beer guide named the pub as the White Star (Quinns 2).
The Beatles ‘back wall’. Image Credit pinterest.com
In the 1960’s, two promoters named Bob Wooler (the original DJ in the Cavern Club) and Alan Williams arranged for bands to play in the back room, and that is where the Beatles played their first ever gig. That room is also where the bands were paid after they had performed at the Cavern and naturally contains Beatles memorabilia, known locally as the ‘Beatles back wall’.
Apparently, Brian Epstein also discussed with Mr Wooler there in 1963 about their upcoming appearances on the Ed Sullivan Show which provided their first exposure to American audiences. On my one foray there I saw a local singer called Siobhan performing.
Across town on Renshaw Street within the Grand Central building, you will find the Liverpool Liffey Bar, and as I am sure you can glean from its moniker it is yet another Irish themed hostelry, this time named after the river which permeates straight through Dublin city centre. The plethora of such bars is no surprise when you factor in that 75% of Liverpudlians have Irish descent, the highest heritage of any British city apart from Glasgow.
The pub was subject to a long running rental dispute with a former tenant which resulted in the pub suddenly closing in March 2022, the disagreement also impacting on the Smokie Mo’s and Nelly Foley bars, which were reviewed in a previous blog. The Liffey was closed for around a year and grabbed that fallow period as an opportunity to undergo a £200,000 refurbishment.
The Liffey Bar. Image Credit liverpoolecho.co.uk
From a business profit viewpoint, they ensured that they managed to reopen in time for St Patricks Day on Friday 17 March 2023 and must have expected a busy one by stocking fifteen barrels of Guinness which equates to 1500 pints, you would be a tad merry after that! They have live music every night and on my visit, there was a singer called Paddy performing.
The Liverpool Sound City festival is an annual multi venue music shindig similar in structure to the Dot to Dot events. It was founded in 2008 and acts such as White Lies, White Denim, Gil Scott Heron, Swans and Hold Steady played in some of those earlier years.
It also runs in conjunction with the John Peel World Cup which is a British Heart Foundation led event where teams derived from band members and music industry bods play in a five a side tournament. It is a gala that I have always yearned to attend and in May 2025 that came to fruition.
Now, my football team Preston North End had proceeded to make an absolute dogs’ dinner of the end of the season, and this allied with some unfeasibly spectacular results from their rivals meant that the spectre of relegation had gone to the last game. Thus, I was nervously checking the scores on the train commute over but results thankfully went in our favour and we achieved safety. I could now relax, and as a result the first cold one did not touch the sides!
The hub points for picking up our wristbands and then our first venue was Liverpool Spanish Caravan. The bar and tapas restaurant is located on Slater Street, and the side wall of the building contains a large mural of ex Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp. There was a spacious indoor bar and beer garden and a decent choice of beverages.
Spanish Caravan complete with mural. Image Credit liverpoolecho.co.uk
At our visiting time the singer on the small stage at the end of the bar was a chap called Oscar Blue who maintained our Irish theme by hailing from County Clare. He had a busker vibe about him and has apparently been a hit on social media where his initial debut singles have been streamed over 10 million times globally.