Cork’s iconic Electric bar to reopen with new look this summer after €2m sale
Electric Bar & Restaurant is located beside the River Lee at The South Mall, Cork City. Picture: Larry Cummins:
JUST over a year after it powered down and called time, Electric, one of Cork City’s best-known bars, is to re-open, following its sale for c €2m.
The new Cork-based owner is a private client of financial advisory firm MC2 Accountants.
It’s understood the Emporium Bar Group, who have four venues in Cork’s suburbs, will play an active role in managing it. It will be the group’s first venture in the city, building on their current portfolio which includes Tradehouse in Ballincollig, JJ Coppingers in Midleton, The Castle in Glanmire and Mabel Lane in Carrigaline.
Electric, at the Grand Parade end of South Mall, is set for an overhaul under the new management who are planning to give it a new look and fit out. Whether it will retain its name is up for discussion.
The re-vamp is expected to improve the ambiance of the adjoining riverside boardwalk and Peace Park and to restore life to a flagging corner of South Mall. The expectation is that the new venture will be up-and-running by July, creating 40 jobs.
Jim McCarthy of MC2 Accountants said they were “delighted to be able to support one of their private clients in acquiring Electric Bar & Restaurant”.
“Given its central location, the property will be a significant addition to Cork’s business community and the group hopes to create a destination premises for business and corporate events, as well as social gatherings for the wider Cork community,” Mr McCarthy said.
He added that MC2 were “proud to have played a key role in facilitating the deal and we look forward to seeing it thrive under its new ownership and management”.
Electric first went on the market in September 2023, when its then owner, Ernest Cantillon, said he was reluctantly bowing out, 13 years after buying it. The guide price at the time for the 6,000 sq ft three-storey premises was €2.5m. It had been developed into a bar at an overall cost of €3.3m, including an auction purchase price at €1.65m in 2009, after it was sold off by ACC Bank, just after the banking, economic and property crash.
With capacity for 330 patrons at ground and first floor level, it had a top-floor fish restaurant which later became a cocktail bar.
Electric was withdrawn from the market at the end of 2023 and a sale was negotiated off-market before Christmas by Rob Coughlan of Cohalan Downing, acting for the vendor.
Mr Coughlan said there had been interest from “several parties” with a number of options considered, including conversion of part of the premises into a residential element.
Ultimately, it was bought by MC2 for their client, with Emporium stepping in to run it. In operation since 2016, the Emporium Company was founded by Cork men Ronan Murphy, Rory O’Doherty, Derek Walshe and Jim McCarthy.
Electric is one of a number of high-profile Cork bars to change hands in recent years. Last year, Reardons on Washington St sold for €25m to Attestor Capital as part of a €30m transaction that included the Oliver Plunkett bar on Oliver Plunkett St.
At the end of 2023, a group linked to Dwyers on Washington street took over four-storey Soho on Grand Parade, which subsequently re-opened as Seventy Seven.
Currently, Chambers Bar, next to Reardons, is on the market, as is the nearby Wine Vault on Western Road, with a guide price of €1.4m. The former Cubin’s nightclub, to the rear of Reardons, is also on the market.
Electric, at 41 South Mall, was one of the city’s first Art Deco buildings, done in what was then an experimental steel and concrete frame. Built by two brothers named O’Shea who had returned to Cork from Chicago after the 1929 Wall Street Crash, it served for a time as a Ford Motors dealership.
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