Cé hé Michael Begley?

Man in charge - Michael Begley behind the bar at Sally O'Brien's.

I'm sitting here with Mike Begley of Sally O'Brien's, the newest Irish pub in Prague, right?

Well we opened New Year's Eve 2023. So we've been open like a year and pushing on four months.

And will you tell us a little bit about yourself and how you ended up in Prague and what gave you the idea to open an Irish pub? 

Myself and my best friend Liam, we own the pub [Sally’s] together. We moved to England when we were like 20 or 21 years old, and we started working in pubs there. And as soon as we did, we got the idea of owning a pub together. And it's only taken us 15 years to do it! A good few years back, Liam moved to Prague and I was back in Ireland again. And after a while, I realised if I came over here, maybe we could actually do it. It was kind of like the rent and everything is a bit more affordable here than in Ireland. You have your pub licence and everything there. It's crazy expensive. So we thought here it was actually realistic and here is where we were anyway. So we thought we'd give it a go.

And there's quite a lot of Irish pubs in Prague already. Was that something that would be a challenge, being yet another one in already quite a crowded space? 

So we are the 16th Irish pub in Prague, and we're still currently the newest one. There's been none since us that I know of anyway, unless you count one that's rebranded recently. So since there were 15, how couldn't there be 16? And plus we're up in Letná, so we're not near any of the other Irish pubs. We have more of a local crowd. We're not so reliant on the tourists. We have a really nice mix of local people, expats and tourists. So it's just a really nice vibe here. And we are very much not your typical Irish pub anyway. Irish pubs abroad tend to follow the same pattern. They sell fish and chips, and they have live music, and that's kind of it. So we thought we'd just do things our own way. So we have a different game or a different deal every day, and themed parties every month. Last year we had a Mexican Star Wars party. We've had all kinds of stuff. We want this to be a place where you never know what's going to happen when you get here. It's a fun place, unpredictable, always welcoming. And we're very passionate about beers. We have a guest beer tap. None of the other Irish pubs here have that.

And how would you split your customers between expats and locals? 

I would say it's about 50% expats, 50% locals.

And would they come here, you think, because they like Guinness or they like the atmosphere here? Because there's a lot of competition from local pubs. 

Yeah, there's an awful lot of pubs in Letná, but we're definitely not like anything else here because we are very focused on atmosphere. We're very focused on great customer service, which not all the other places are. A lot of people come here for the Guinness. So we have the people who just come for the Guinness because they want to drink that and they don't want to go into the city centre, but we also have a lot of people who come here for the craic.

And talking of your Guinness, there's a chap out there on social media who says that yours is the best Guinness in Prague. Is that true? 

Yes, Darragh Curran, the Guinness Guru, said we have the best Guinness in Prague, but to be honest, I think we're the best Guinness outside Ireland!

And what is it about Guinness that means that it never tastes quite the same as it does in Ireland? 

So there's this great myth that Guinness doesn't travel well, and it's absolute nonsense. I know some people get upset about that because they really believe it, but it travels just fine. It's in kegs. They're pressurised. Unless something horrible happens to the kegs on the way over. It's the way you treat it when it gets here. Same as people think that it's all about how it's poured. By the time it gets to the tap, it's either good or it's bad already. The pouring is just the nice bit at the end. But everything happens down in the cellar, all the important stuff.

And you would say then you have your cellar processes well worked out? 

I guess, we had that worked out before we opened. We knew we were going to have a very good Guinness before we ever opened the doors. It wasn't a surprise to us.

And in terms of running a business in Prague and actually making a profit, do you have some lessons learned? Has it all been relatively plain sailing? 

No, it couldn't have been less plain sailing. We have a lot of lessons learned, a lot of mistakes made. It's grand. We're working it out as we go along. We've both managed businesses before, but this is the first time owning one.

These marketing tricks that you're using, or strategies, they're definitely differentiating you. Are they costing you a lot in terms of lost revenues?

Well for example we had a group of customers come in just now and because this is a Thursday, they got a chance to roll the dice. And had they got a six, they would have had all their drinks, their entire bill, basically free of charge. I like the way you call it tricks, like we're being sneaky. We're just trying to give away free drinks! We're just being nice guys. They cost a bit of money, but like I said before, it's all about the fun. It's all about people coming in and having craic, not just going to the same place and it's the same thing every time. We want you to come here, have fun, be surprised, and maybe sometimes you get free drinks.

Looking forward to the future, what do you think? How long will Sally's be here? 

Yeah, I mean, Sally's presumably will be here forever, unless after we die someone does something else with it, but we have no plans of going anywhere at the moment.

On a personal level, do you miss Ireland?

I'd like to go back a couple of times a year, but I don't know if I'd ever want to move back. It's definitely very different there. It's a lot more welcoming back home, but sure, here is nice too.

You were saying no plans to return to Ireland for the moment. Do you notice any cultural differences between the Irish and the Czechs?

Like drinking differences? I've noticed the big difference here is that everyone sits down when they go on a night out. It's jarring to me even still and I've been here for years. It's just people come in and they sit down and they drink and they just talk to their friends, whereas in any pub in Ireland you'd be up standing for the whole night, you'd be at the bar, you'd be meeting new people. That's a big culture difference as far as I know.

Is it fair to say that Czech people are a little bit more conservative in terms of when they go out?

Yeah, I would say so. I would say Irish people are more friendly but I suppose maybe that's the whole immigration and famine thing. Maybe it was forced on us. Or some people say because we live on an island we had to all kind of get along. There was nowhere to move to.

And plans for the future? Are we likely to see other branches of Sally's or the like in Prague anytime soon? 

Definitely in the future there will be more Sally's popping up here, there and everywhere around Prague. That's the plan. Good, good, good.

Since the interview, Sally O’Brien has given birth to a sister, or a cousin – Sally O’Neills.