Dublin Square Irish Pub

Went here on a Sunday afternoon.  It was my second time there.  The first time was fine.  

On this occasion, I went there with my friend.  The restaurant was at approximately 30% capacity, so servers, back servers, and bar tenders were chatting among themselves and fooling around.  Upon entering the door, we had to ask the hostess if there was a seat instead of her asking us.  We wanted to sit outside, so the hostess led us to a table on the patio and dropped us menus and said someone will be with us shortly.  So far so good.  

5 minutes go by, a short brunette girl walking around tables, not very busy with nothing in her hands and not taking orders.  We are thirsty, want some water, and want to order drinks and food... a busser walks by our table with a pitcher of water and doesn't ask us if we want glasses or water or silverware... nothing.  
Another 5 minutes go by and we are wondering what the hell is going on.  We just want to order!  I flag down the short brunette girl and she tells me that she'll go find someone to serve us.  She immediately walks over to another table, then to talk to the busboy, then goes inside.  She comes back out a few minutes later with nothing in her hands and ignores us.  

Now we are really wondering what is going on... no idea why someone can't just walk over and serve us drinks on a hot day!  We are Cooley Law students in our late 20's and dressed appropriately...  

So by now 15 minutes have gone by, the restaurant is not busy and there are servers doing nothing with their time.  My friend get's up and leaves because she is all upset about the service, hungry, and cannot wait any longer.  I get up to go find the manager.  I ask a back server where I can find the manager.  The back server says he can't find him, but he is a "tall, big guy."  I walk up to the hostess and she is chatting with another server who is sitting down on the bench across from the hostess stand... really???  I tell her what went wrong and she says, "who sat you?"  Are you serious?  YOU sat me 20 minutes ago... WOW.  The server sitting on the bench was nice enough to offer us help and serve us but by then it was too late.  Damage has been done.  

I have 10 years experience serving tables.  I have worked at summer locations, steak houses, bars, and upscale Italian restaurants in the North End of Boston, MA.  Needless to say, I know what good service is and I can sympathize with restaurants when they are super busy and waitstaff is weeded because 300 covers are being put out in 4 hours...

I hope others have a better experience here because the location is awesome and the style reminds me of what I would find on the East Coast... However, I would recommend management oversees their waitstaff and pays more attention to their customers.  There seems to be a lack of communication and helping each other out with servicing customers at this restaurant.

Management here must be a bunch of morons for not staffing appropriately on one of the known busiest days... East Lansing art fair (2012) - by far one of the worst experiences I've ever had.

However, I have been here on multiple occasions that haven't sucked so hard. It's a big Irish pub - the staff is generally nice - sometimes they have attitudes I don't care for.

They do have a nice big patio and live music occasionally. It's your party place. They staff behind the bar very well, but not the servers on the floor. So... come in and sit at the bar if you can find a spot and enjoy some beverages - the food is nothing to write home about.

Dublin is an interesting place.  During the day, it's your typical irish pub, other than the music that doesn't really fit.  It looks nice from the outside, and has an old pub look on the inside.  The food is your typical irish pub grub, and it's pretty good.  They have a nice patio you can sit/eat on.  To get to it you go through a GIGANTIC door.

At night, this place turns into just another crazy East Lansing bar.  They have a back room that they open up and there's a DJ and dancing.  The rest of the place is a bit calmer.

I think it's unique because it's a pretty good restaurant during the day and a crazy bar at night.  Most other bars in EL are not known for good food during the day unless it's a burger.