The Racecourse Prices Index: how much for food and drink at Tipperary?

Racecourse report: entry, food and pint prices from Tipperary

Tipperary

Date visited: Thursday, June 30, 2022

Was it a big day?
It was the second day of a two-day meeting at the course and the track's biggest jumps card of the summer, featuring the Grade 3 Kevin McManus Bookmaker Grimes Hurdle. It was also ladies' day, for which the weather thankfully behaved and led to a good crowd turning up.

How much was entry on the gate?
€20, €15 for senior citizens and students, €5 for 13-18 year olds and free for under-13s.

Other than restaurants/hospitality, what were the food and beverage options?
The enclosures at Tipperary are quite compact, featuring two grandstands with the bookmakers ring and a small green area in between. Quite why the public eating options are in one grandstand and the bar is in the other is a little bit of a puzzle, but it's not entirely unusual. However, the course does make good use of the space it has.

There were no outside eating options, so it was off to the self-service restaurant to get some grub. The menu was mostly good old fashioned farmer's food – roast beef for €15.50 and bacon and cabbage for €13.95.

Smaller and more traditional racecourse food such as sausage and chips could be snared for €8.50, and my own choice of chicken goujons and chips was perfectly respectable at a mere €8.95. If you fancied soup and a roll it would set you back €4.75, while a sandwich cost €4.95. There was plenty to choose from.

A decent crowd assembled at Tipperary for Grimes Hurdle dayCredit: Caroline Norris

The drinking options were provided across the green at the Istabraq bar. It was not a particularly good experience. They seemed to have a full enough range of drinks, the draught options were Guinness, Budweiser and Bulmers. There was not much sign of champagne.

The bar staff were unaware of prices, apparently because they were just setting up, not a problem I have come across anywhere else. The price of the pint was only learned after a couple of customers ordered one!

What's the damage?
Bottle of water: €2.20
Cheapest pint: €5.50
Guinness: €5.50
Champagne: Who knows?
Burger: None; there were hot beef rolls available in the bar.

Most drink prices taken from the Istabraq bar.

What was the burger like?
There weren't any, but the chicken goujons and chips was a very nice substitute.

And the queues?
Queues in the restaurant were fine and well managed. The same cannot be said for the bar – you would not want to be dying of thirst waiting to be served there.

I stood there for nearly ten minutes waiting for information which was not forthcoming, one poor punter was stood beside me for a similar length waiting to be served, and it was not exactly busy at that stage.

The Racecourse Prices Index:

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