On the evening of February 17th, a crowd of over 150 people staged a protest on George’s St in solidarity with the Japanese restaurant and late-night venue, Yamamori Izakaya. This is in response to the legal action being taken by their new neighbour, the Hoxton Hotel, which has claimed that the venue’s late-night noise has forced them to close off several rooms. The outrage from the patrons of Yamamori reflects the growing collective frustration of young people towards Dublin’s diminishing nightlife scene. The multi-venue model of Yamamori includes dinner, drinks, and dancing, all within the same dimly lit Tokyo-inspired interior. This atmosphere provides a space for a slightly older crowd to congregate, or college students who have served their mandatory time on Harcourt St and are tired of getting body checked by sweaty, drunk eighteen-year-olds.
An authentic space with a good vibe is getting harder and harder to find in Dublin, and this is reflected in how many fans of Yamamori were willing to show up. Over 6,500 people signed a petition to save Yamamori, and the protest lasted well into the night, including singing, techno sets, and anything else that encompasses the Hoxton’s worst nightmare: happy people making noise. It’s clear that this protest was also fuelled by a unanimous distaste for multinational corporations who seem to have made themselves at home in our city. The Central Hotel, which existed there before the Hoxton, used the space as a function room to negate noise complaints. However, the Hoxton’s main incentive is clearly to maximise profit by converting the space into bedrooms. The Hoxtons’ €100 million budget could have easily included soundproofing, but it didn’t have that in its plans. Why? Because this faceless corporation doesn’t know the city and didn’t care to do its due diligence.
Following the rumours that the Hoxton is allegedly opening its own late-night venue sometime this year, the clear disregard for local culture in favour of extracting profit has left a bad taste in the mouths of the Dublin people. But the story of Yamamori shows that despite local venues’ struggle to survive, the culture of food, drink, and dancing is alive and well. If you take care of your people, they’ll take care of you, and this rally of support has shown that although there have been many nails in the coffin of Dublin’s nightlife scene, it’s far from in the ground.
