Guinness Storehouse, an innovative new urban space was launched in November 2000 and has since achieved the status of Irelands No. 1 visitor attraction. The one Million visitor mark was passed in September 2002 and visitor numbers have continued to rise since.
Guinness Storehouse occupies a 170,000 square foot (four acres) 1904 listed building on the brewery site. The six storey high facility is built around a giant 100ft high glass pint central atrium. On the very top of the building is Gravity, a circular roof top bar, with floor to ceiling glass walls, giving an unequalled 360o panoramic view of Dublin city.
It houses the new Guinness Experience, a world class visitor experience. It has bars and a restaurant open to the public; together with extensive facilities for corporate events.
Guinness Storehouse also has a gallery and exhibition area, a retail store and is home to the Guinness Archive, which has 250 years of social and brewery history.
Visitors to the Guinness Experience at Guinness Storehouse can discover what goes into making a pint of Guinness – the ingredients, the brewing process, the time and the craft. They can also see how Guinness has travelled to 150 countries and how the famous brew has been advertised over the years. Their journey ends on the roof in Gravity bar with a perfect pint and the best view in Dublin.
The Guinness Storehouse also houses Guinness flagship retail outlet. Located on the ground floor of the Visitor Experience, it is an accessible and engaging store, which presents the best mix of traditional and contemporary merchandise unique to the home of Guinness.
The Guinness Storehouse is open seven days a week and only closes on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, St Stephen’s Day and Good Friday.
The Guinness Storehouse installed “Meridian” in March of 2003. “Meridian” now provides EPOS and stock control for the Retail outlet as well as operating the busy admissions desks.
In the Retail outlet as well as providing normal Sales functions “Meridian” has enabled the Guinness Storehouse to offer VAT refund and multi-currency facilities to their customers directly at point of sale. DCC (Dynamic Currency Conversion) is offered on credit card purchases allowing the customer to be charged in their home currency at time of sale. This facility has proved extremely popular as the shopper has a fixed price in a familiar currency, it also avoids the need to wait for conversion at time of posting and avoids possible exchange rate fluctuations.
At the admission desks speed is paramount, “Meridian” operates with Touchscreen technology to calculate and process admission charges and also to capture demographic data on visitors.
