Day Trips: The Goose’s Acre Pub, The Woodlands
Bar and restaurant transported to Texas retains its Irish brogue
By Gerald E. McLeod, Fri., March 16, 2018
The Goose's Acre Bistro and Irish Pub in The Woodlands has the ghosts of leprechauns burnished deep into the bar's dark wood.
The original Goose's Acre Pub quenched the thirst of many locals on Main Street in Midleton, County Cork, Ireland, for nearly a century. Across the road from the public house that had been in the same family for generations was a park where Kate Barr grazed her geese, giving the common area and the pub their name.
The goose was cooked in 2005 when the pub was to be demolished to make way for a new roundabout in the Irish town famous for its Jameson Whiskey distillery.
It just so happened that Irish descendants Brian Young and Colm O'Neill were in the country visiting relatives when the news broke of the pub's demise. The partners, who owned the popular, but now closed, Brian O'Neill's Traditional Irish Pub in Houston, bought the bar's furnishings and had them shipped across the pond.
The result is an authentic Irish pub in a new two-story brick building with two patios overlooking the man-made waterway in a master-planned community 28 miles north of downtown Houston. Once you're inside, the bar and restaurant transports you back to the Emerald Isle.
The Goose's Acre Bistro and Irish Pub is at 21 Waterway Ave., a short distance from I-45 in The Woodlands. The food menu is outstanding with an excellent version of shepherd's pie that has a slight Texas accent. The drink menu covers a selection of beers and Irish whiskeys, including Guinness and Jameson for a taste of home. At the Goose's Acre, St. Patrick's Day is a weeklong celebration.
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