ruin pub

plural ruin pubs

1. A bar, selling alcoholic beverages, inhabiting an old building left in a ramshackle condition; a popular style of pub in Budapest.

   “Let's go to Corvinteto,” she said, mentioning the ruin pub in the old abandoned department store near her apartment. “I need a drink.”

   2013, Kenneth Rosenberg, chapter 32, in Memoirs of a Starving Artist: An Itinerant Writer's Journey through an Unconventional Life, →ISBN, page 295

   2 more examples

   Each ruin pub is unique, but they all share certain similarities. The main ingredient is usually an abandoned building, preferably with a vacant lot nearby to hold picnic tables and a few beer taps.

   2011 August 15, Mark Baker, “The 'ruin pubs' of Budapest's seventh district”, in BBC

   I say how much I like the shabby lounge atmosphere of a ruin pub, and Laura declares that this one, Szimpla Kert (which means “Simple Garden”), is the mecca of ruin pubs.

   2014, Rick Steves, Rick Steves' Europe Through the Back Door 2015: The Travel Skills Handbook, Avalon Travel, →ISBN, page 705

   Synonyms: ruin bar