The street has seen a revival in recent years and is now the "liveliest it's ever been" "When we first took the premises, this end of Dale Street was derelict", says Gareth Morgan. Alongside his wife Vicky, Gareth has run craft beer bar The Dead Crafty Beer Co. since 2015 and the couple, who live in Garston , have witnessed plenty of change in that time.
Gareth, 45, added: "Back then, you had the pubs like The Ship & Mitre and The Excelsior but the retail units were all derelict. There was someone building what turned into the Dale Street Kitchen but nobody came here. "People just walked past, it was all hoardings all round it.
We did think 'what are we doing here?'" Fortunately, Dead Crafty had customers on its doorstep, as Dale Street remained the heart of Liverpool's business district. " The Municipal was still open as offices then, so there were thousands of council workers", said Gareth. "For our Thursday and Friday trade, it was all council workers.
" However, a significant blow arrived shortly after opening. Vicky, 47, said: " The Magistrates' Courts (found directly opposite the bar) closed six months after we opened. We thought it might turn into a hotel or something new, but that hasn’t happened yet.
" The council also departed Dale Street a year later, taking their after-work drinkers with them. Meanwhile, the court building has sat empty since 2015, with a number of attempts to convert it into accommodation failing to get off the ground. A new application was approved in March of this year , with it now set to become a four-star hotel.
It would join a number of hotels on and around the street, including an ibis, DoubleTree, Premier Inn, Travelodge, The Z and The Municipal itself , which has converted the former council offices into luxury accommodation and is hoping to become Liverpool's first AA-rated five-star hotel . It opened in May 2023, boasting 168 rooms, 11 suites, a spa, a pool, a British brasserie, a tea room and the Palm Court cocktail bar. The number of tourists that are based on Dale Street has provided welcome footfall for its pubs and food spots, replacing the office trade lost by closures and the rise of home working in the years since the Covid-19 pandemic .
The lack of office workers in town could have proven fatal for the street's many watering holes , which long thrived on office workers' willingness to sneak out for a lunchtime pint or sink a few on the way home. However, the hotels have proven to be a saving grace. Vicky said: "Before covid and before everyone started working from home, we would get all the after work drinkers in.
We get hardly any now. "But on the flip side of that, there are way more hotels now and our trade on Friday, Saturday and Sunday is tourists. All the regulars come mid-week and then at weekends we have every nationality in the bar.
It's great. "There are probably 12 hotels and apartment hotels within a five minute distance, we've also got Lime Street station , so people get off and walk past. They'll either come in on the way to check in or they'll check in and come straight back here.
We're lucky in that sense and that's our biggest trade." She added: " I don't even follow football but I know if Liverpool are playing at the weekend, because on the Friday we are just full of Scandinavians. We've now got regulars who are from Stockholm and places like that.
" That change in demographic has been noticed by all of Dale Street's publicans, including Ben Garner. Ben, 53, has been a co-owner of distinctive The Ship & Mitre since 2007 and his pub has overcome a number of hurdles, including the financial crash and covid lockdowns , in that time. Ben, who lives in Wallasey , told the ECHO : "It was a business district, but now I think it's the hotel district.
That's an evolution of the way things are, we're never going to go back to offices with hundreds of people in - the council offices, the museum offices, the law courts, they've all gone by the wayside." He added: "Covid hit and it was a nose dive. There's been a massive social change, we used to get a lot of office workers but with everybody working from home now, it's massively changed the way things are.
"But Dale Street has reinvented - there's a much younger crowd attached to it now. We've tried to brand as a beer quarter - we've got Dead Crafty, The Excelsior, The Vernon, Thomas Rigby's and so many more. "We get people in from the hotels.
Initially we noticed it when all the workmen from the Municipal started coming in, because they were working on it for two years. That was great, it was good for the area. It's another reason to come to Dale Street, there's meant to be two more new hotels, so that can only be good.
" The Municipal's general manager Annie Brown told the ECHO that she's proud the hotel has played a part in Dale Street's resurgence. She said: "At The Municipal Hotel & Spa MGallery Liverpool, we are thrilled to witness Dale Street's transformation into a vibrant city centre hub, and we are proud to have made a contribution to the local community. Ms Brown added: "We have revitalised the iconic Municipal Building with a £70m revamp, supporting the street's post-pandemic growth and celebrating the success of emerging businesses.
From attracting international guests to welcoming locals into our exquisite restaurants and our magnificent spa, Dale Street is now livelier than ever. We warmly invite you to visit the hotel and discover all it has to offer.” The importance of hotels such as The Municipal to the area cannot be underestimated, according to Conor Devlin, owner of traditional pub The Vernon Arms .
Conor, 58, told the ECHO : "On a Saturday, up to 3pm, our place is full of people with suitcases waiting to check in, having an ale here because they can't check in yet. "Equally, once they've checked out they come here to wait for their train or taxi. We're right at the heart of it because we've got the Premier Inn, the Municipal, the DoubleTree, the Ibis.
The Magistrates' Court will become one." Conor is proud that this collection of pubs is on the doorstep of so many tourists, showcasing them to people from near and far. He said: " Our strap line is 'putting the ale in Dale Street', that's something I always want to tick along with.
"We are right bang in the centre. We're right in the cluster of the hotels, we get people heading back to their hotels after a day in town, they pop in here. " A chap who was in yesterday was staying in the Premier Inn.
He wondered where the nearest decent pub was and thought it could be half a mile when he booked it, but he walked out and it was ten yards across the road. He's getting the finest pint of White Rat ale here. "But I love the fact you have other pubs like The Excelsior, which is exceptional.
When I say Dale Street, even when you go off it and you go to places like The Lion Tavern - I count that as part of us, that's the ale quarter. "The Lion is an exceptional building and that's an important part - it all brings them in. People all move around from one to another, you can just spend the whole day on Dale Street.
It's like an ale theme park. "The bars here really do maintain their ale. There's no other part of town like it, there's nowhere else you could go where you get so many great bars all in a row.
" There is more to Dale Street than pubs, however. Next door to Dead Crafty is Italian bar Carlisi, Dale Street Kitchen draws huge crowds for brunch and Colombian street food spot The Twins Flavour, found opposite The Vernon, has become very popular. It's meant that, as Conor says, spending an entire day on Dale Street is rather easy.
"For me, it's class that we have street food here as well", he said. "The Colombian street food, Carlisi, the atmosphere is great. "Having the pavement licences really brings a Mediterranean feel to it.
To have these top class street food places really brings that." Alejandra and Isabel Cadaud opened The Twins Flavour in January 2023 . Having previously worked in kitchens across Liverpool, the twin sisters from Colombia feel right at home with their own venture on Dale Street.
Isabel, 33, told the ECHO : "We are really happy here - over t he past few days with all the protests and everything, a lot of other business owners have come in to check whether we are ok, if we need something. They were checking with us, so we felt covered and protected, that's lovely, there's a great community here. "A lot is happening here with the new hotels.
A lot of people staying at the hotels pop in here for food. I don't know why they don't go to the hotel kitchen, but we are happy to have them. "There's also lots of pubs and other food spots.
Especially now when it's sunny, we have the seats outside, people come for a drink and a snack, it's great to be here. "We feel busier every day. At the beginning you need people to know you, but now we have a good base here.
Looking forward, those behind Dale Street's hospitality businesses want to see more of the same to continue its reinvention. Conor sees parallels with another major city centre street. He explained: "If you look at Duke Street and how that was 20 years ago, it was derelict and horrendous.
Now there's hardly a spot on it, it looks beautiful and there are some great places opening there - shops, hotels, The Monro , all the way down." At Dead Crafty's end, former office block Kingsway House stands empty - though it has been brightened up by a Paul Curtis mural of Katarina Johnson-Thompson . Gareth and Vicky would like to see movement with derelict buildings and they welcome the latest hotel plans for the old court building.
Gareth said: "We don't want to be opposite a derelict building. But I also think we need more street lighting, maybe some lights around Christmas. Overall I think the street needs some more investment.
"So much of the street is beautiful, the Municipal is stunning. But if you sandblast the magistrates' court, got rid of the weeds and did it up, it would look great as well. "We've seen the road grow hugely in our time here but it still needs the edges finishing - it j ust needs a bit of love and care.
I think because Dale Street was the business district, the idea was that it would always look after itself." However, the consensus is that Dale Street has reinvented successfully and found a new purpose beyond being a business district - sparked by independent venues happily working in collaboration. Gareth summed it up by saying: " When we first looked at this area, it was quite bleak but there is a lot of intendent business now, as well as the big hotel chains.
People are doing better things, which is bringing a lot more people over to this road.".
