The Guinness Storehouse, the seven-floor visitor experience built into a converted fermentation plant at St. James's Gate, has begun renovation work on its top-floor Gravity Bar. The project, expected to complete in late 2026, is the first significant intervention to the seventh floor since the bar's last redesign in 2014.
What changes
The redesign focuses on three things: the bar itself (a longer, lower service counter intended to remove the famous queue-around-the-rim experience); the seating layout (more low-perch seating around the windows, fewer high tables in the centre); and the lighting (warmer, lower, less reflected against the glass at sunset). The 360-degree window view of the city remains the centrepiece.
Why now
The Storehouse opened to the public in November 2000 with a target of 250,000 visitors annually. By 2014, when the building's last major refresh occurred, it was hosting around 1.2 million. Pre-pandemic, the figure had passed 1.7 million; post-pandemic, it returned to roughly 1.6 million in 2024.
The current footfall is well above what the original building was designed for, and the seventh floor — where most visitors end their tour — has long been the bottleneck. The renovation is, in effect, an attempt to relieve a queue that's sometimes a half-hour long.
