New pub/restaurant and guesthouse to open on historic Kildare site
An inn first opened at that location in the 1600s
A new pub/restaurant and guesthouse will open at Johnstown, just outside Naas, on Sunday week.
The new enterprise has been developed on the site of the Johnstown Inn and it will re-launch in three phases.
A bar and restaurant, named 1640, will open first on July 19. The reference to 1640 acknowledges that an inn first opened there in that year.
The second phase is due to be completed in autumn, possibly mid-September and will feature Eliza, a fine dining restaurant.
There will also be corporate services on offer with the unveiling of a boardroom and function room.
The restaurant is named after Eliza Kenny, the daughter of a local farmer who was engaged to but never married John Devoy.
Devoy was an Irish Republican leader who was born at Greenhills, near Johnstown, in 1842.
The final phase will be the opening of 25 bedrooms in the premises. The owners hope that these will be ready by the year’s end and that the entire business will be fully operational by next spring.
The landmark premises is the only business of its kind in the immediate hinterland and it has undergone a significant refurbishment programme, which got underway about 15 months ago.
It was bought by the owners of Lawlor’s Hotel in Naas, when it went to market with a guide price of €1.9m.
It occupies 900 square metres just off the N7 dual carriageway and came for sale with planning permission for redevelopment, a fully equipped bar and restaurant with a kitchen, a nightclub complex as well as permission for a number of apartments.