Five historic Liverpool pubs, from Hackins Hey to Hope Street, with checked dates, surviving interiors and what food they actually serve today.
Liverpool does not have a tidy list of restaurants that have traded unchanged for centuries. Its longest hospitality stories belong to pubs, and even then the building, the name, the licence and the food have usually changed at different times.
A pint and a pie can still put you inside several different versions of the city. Down Hackins Hey there is a pub whose claim to a 1726 origin has been repeated for generations. Behind Lime Street, a pub built a decade after the railway station arrived became tied to Liverpool's theatre world. On Rice Street, a cramped Victorian pub ended up in the story of John Lennon before the Beatles existed. Up on Hope Street and Lime Street, the brewer Robert Cain spent heavily on two pubs that look almost absurdly elaborate for buildings meant to sell beer.
These are not really "old restaurants". One is mainly a drinking pub, others do pies, pizzas or bar food, and one runs a full kitchen. What connects them is that you can still walk through the door and stand in a room that belongs to an earlier Liverpool.
It is more complicated than putting five opening dates in order. A pub can sit on an old site in a much later building. Its current name can be younger than the business. The interior can date from a refit decades after it first opened.
That matters here. The Vines has a pub history on Lime Street going back to Albert Vines in the 1860s, but the building you see now was finished in 1907. Ma Egerton's building dates to 1846, yet the Mary Egerton who gave it its identity did not take over what was then the Eagle until the 1930s.
| Venue | Historic date to know | Food today |
|---|---|---|
| Ye Hole in Ye Wall, Hackins Hey | Traditional claim of 1726, though the history is less clear-cut than the sign suggests | Mainly a drinking pub; food limited |
| Ma Egerton's, Pudsey Street | Building dates to 1846 | Stone-baked pizzas, sharing plates and pub dishes |
| Ye Cracke, Rice Street | Mid-19th century, originally the Ruthin Castle | Lunchtime food including pies |
| Philharmonic Dining Rooms, Hope Street | Built 1898 to 1900 | Full food menu and Sunday lunch |
| The Vines, Lime Street | Current building completed 1907, replacing an earlier pub | Pub food and bar dishes; check the day's offer before travelling |
4 Hackins Hey, off Dale Street
Ye Hole in Ye Wall is routinely called Liverpool's oldest pub, with 1726 printed prominently in its story. National travel writing has used the date and older Liverpool CAMRA material repeated it.
CAMRA's current entry is more careful. It calls the pub "rumoured to be the oldest hostelry in the city" rather than stating the date as fact, and its survey shows that much of the interior you see today comes from a substantial inter-war refit: the panelling, the leaded screens, the former telephone booth. Local history research has also questioned whether the present premises can be traced directly to a pub trading on this spot in 1726.
So it is fair to treat the 1726 origin as a traditional claim, not a settled fact. That makes the place more interesting, not less. What is not in doubt is the survival of an unusual historic interior, including a first-floor cellar and old bell pushes. The pub also says it was one of Liverpool's last male-only public bars before the Sex Discrimination Act took effect in the mid-1970s.
For dinner, this is the weakest fit on the list. The food offer is limited rather than a full menu, so check before making a special trip. The history is the reason to go in.
1 Pudsey Street, behind Lime Street station
Ma Egerton's makes more sense when you look at what grew up around it. Liverpool Lime Street station opened in 1836. The pub says its building followed in 1846, while the railway district was still spreading.
The name came later. By the pub's own account, Mary Egerton took over what was then the Eagle in the 1930s. She was also a registered theatrical agent, and by then the streets behind Lime Street were full of theatres, cinemas and entertainment businesses. The current Empire opened in 1925 on a site with a theatre history back to 1866, which helps explain how a pub almost hidden behind the station built such a strong stage-door identity.
Ma Egerton's lists performers linked to the pub over the years, among them Frank Sinatra, Judy Garland, Charlie Chaplin, Laurel and Hardy and Harry Houdini. That list comes mainly from the pub's own history, so it is better read as the pub's story than as proven attendance for every name.
Food is still part of the offer here. The kitchen does stone-baked pizzas, cheeseboards and sharing plates, several of the pizzas named after performers connected to the pub.
13 Rice Street, off Hope Street
The safe dating for Ye Cracke is mid-19th century. Pub-history research places the Ruthin Castle here from around 1852, and later accounts describe the pub taking its fuller shape in the early 1860s. Either way the building's pub history runs well past 150 years, rather than the vague early-1800s origin sometimes claimed.
The scale is the point. This is not a Lime Street drinking palace. The historic part is a set of small rooms knocked through from neighbouring properties, including a tiny front bar and the "War Office" snug, a name traditionally linked to customers arguing over news from the Boer War of 1899 to 1902.
Its cultural history is better known. John Lennon drank here while studying at the Liverpool College of Art next door, and CAMRA holds photographs of him in the pub.
Ye Cracke closed for work in 2025 and reopened under new ownership with its character largely intact. By 2026 it was open daily again, serving changing cask ales and lunchtime food including pies. The interesting thing is not just that Lennon once drank here. It is that the pub still runs as a small multi-room local rather than a Beatles attraction built around him.
36 Hope Street
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By 1900 Liverpool's breweries could build pubs on a completely different scale. The Philharmonic Dining Rooms went up between 1898 and 1900 for Robert Cain & Sons, designed by the Liverpool architect Walter W Thomas. Historic England calls it the high point of the "gin palace" pub.
This was not a merchant dining room later turned into a pub. It was built as an exceptionally elaborate public house, using stone, mahogany, copper, stained glass, ceramics, mosaic floors and carved decoration throughout. Some details tie the building to Philharmonic Hall opposite; others draw on the city's maritime trade.
In 2020 the building was upgraded from Grade II* to Grade I. Historic England said this made it the first purpose-built Victorian pub in England to reach Grade I. Even the gentlemen's toilets that visitors are always sent to see are part of the original scheme, their marble and imitation-marble fittings noted in the listing.
If the plan really is to eat somewhere historic rather than just drink, this is the clearest answer on the list. The Philharmonic runs a full food menu, sandwiches and Sunday lunch.
81 Lime Street
The Vines is younger than the Philharmonic, but its story starts before the current building. Historic England records an earlier pub run by Albert B Vines from 1867. Robert Cain & Sons replaced it in 1907 with the building that still dominates this stretch of Lime Street, again designed by Walter W Thomas.
The point was not vague "municipal wealth". It was a brewery showing what it could afford to build. Historic England says the scale, decoration and original interiors reflected Robert Cain's status, wealth and ambition. Mahogany, beaten copper, elaborate plasterwork and a stained-glass dome survive inside. It is Grade II* listed.
The contrast with the Philharmonic is useful. Same brewery, same architect, very different setting. Hope Street had universities and concert halls. Lime Street was the railway gateway, with St George's Hall, hotels, theatres and a constant churn of arrivals.
The Vines also shows that survival is not automatic. After a long decline, the 1936 Pub Company took the lease, restored the building and reopened it in 2023. The work later won the Historic England Conservation award at CAMRA's Pub Design Awards. The pub is trading in 2026; food has included pies and bar dishes, but the website does not publish a full menu, so check the day's offer if you are going to eat.
Put these buildings in order and the city shifts around them. Hackins Hey belongs to the dense commercial streets north of the modern shops. Ma Egerton's appears once Lime Street station starts pulling travellers into the city. Ye Cracke grows among the smaller streets behind Hope Street. The Philharmonic and The Vines arrive when Robert Cain was commissioning pubs with the ambition of far grander buildings.
Their food offers are not interchangeable either. For a full meal, the Philharmonic is the strongest fit. Ma Egerton's has a proper kitchen. Ye Cracke is a historic pub with simple lunchtime food. The Vines is a pub first, so check before travelling to eat. Ye Hole in Ye Wall belongs on the walk, but not on a list promising five sit-down dinners.
For a wider choice based on what you want to eat rather than how old the room is, the where to eat in Liverpool by area guide covers the city by neighbourhood. The Hope Street and Georgian Quarter guide puts Ye Cracke and the Philharmonic in the context of the streets around them, and six Liverpool buildings that changed the world covers the wider architectural story.
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