Finnigan's Wake Irish Pub

Located at 620 North Trade Street in Winston-Salem’s Downtown Arts District, Finnigan’s Wake serves Irish pub food from 11 p.m. to 2 a.m. seven days a week. There is a full bar, daily food and drink specials, outdoor seating, and a brunch on weekends as well as occasional live music. Vegetarian options are also available.

With a handsome wood interior and a menu full of Irish pub staples (fish and chips, corned beef, shepherd’s pie, bangers, and more), Finnigan’s Wake certainly looks the part. However, while there are certainly a few bright spots, the uneven execution leaves considerable room for improvement.

As mentioned, the menu has no shortage of appealing options. Scotch eggs, Guinness stew, mac and cheese and the plowman’s lunch all seemed like worthy contenders, but my fiancée and I opted to split a Reuben with a side of Granny Smith coleslaw and an order of shepherd’s pie nachos. The Reuben featured some quality corned beef and a nice spicy mustard, but it could have benefitted from a thicker bread: ours was rather limp. The shepherd’s pie nachos were a great concept but definitely needed more seasoning, more gravy, and fresher chips. The Granny Smith slaw did not contain any apple chunks but was instead infused with apple flavor. It was easily the best thing on the plate: slightly sweet, creamy, and delicious.

The rest of the Finnigan’s Wake experience proved to be similarly inconsistent. Servers were genuinely friendly, but the kitchen seemed slow given that it was not especially crowded at the time of our lunch visit. The $9.50 charged for a heaping platter of nachos was fair considering the quantity; however, the $10.50 charged for an average-sized sandwich and side seemed a stretch. M’Coul’s in Greensboro, a similarly-themed establishment, does it for $1.50 less.

Given its menu, service, location, and décor, I wanted to like Finnigan’s Wake a lot more than I actually did. Had the kitchen upped its game, this would have likely become a regular stop during visits to downtown Winston. Instead, it’s a place I would consider again albeit with significantly reduced expectations.

7.25/10