Wall and Smith to roll out Homeboy with five new bars

Homeboy owners Aaron Wall and Ciarán Smith have decided to roll out their Islington-based Irish bar to other parts of London and even further afield, Drinks International can exclusively reveal.

Wall told DI that they are actively looking for new venues around London with the aim of opening five bars in five years.

“We’re looking for a second venue. We’ve been on the hunt for months and we’ve had plenty of offers for investment,” said Wall. “We want to see if we can do it on our own without the investments but the aim is to open five bars in five years.

“We’ve already looked at nine venues and put in offers on two. The concept would work in old pubs and basement bars and we’ve even talked to a hotel bar.”

Wall and Smith opened the current Homeboy in late 2018 and has insisted that all of the future bars will sit under the same name.

“We’ve looked as far as Notting Hill and as close as Shoreditch and although we love being a neighbourhood bar, we feel we can do a little bit more. I think we could also add a more serious food operation.”

Inside the current Homeboy

Homeboy was recently commended for Best New Bar at the Class Bar Awards 2020 and during his time as training and development manager with London Cocktail Club, Wall helped the company grow from five bars to 10.

Wall added: “The next two bars we want to be in London because we want to manage them at arm's length. Then after that we can learn to manage remotely and I’d love to open a bar in Dublin someday, but that’s a much harder thing to do than in London. Ciarán also wants to open up in New York and our USP is our hospitality.

“I think that in some of the top bars in the world there are conditions on your night out, so we want to take away those conditions and really embrace Irish hospitality. “