Mac Rating: 5.00 | Votes: 1 | Date: 20/06/2026 18:27:00

The Botanic Inn, known affectionately as the Bot, is a Victorian pub and bar on the Malone Road in Belfast's Queen's Quarter, close to Botanic Gardens and Queen's University. Trading since 1867, it is a long-established institution and one of the best-known social venues in the south of the city. Noted as an example of Victorian architecture in Northern Ireland, the pub has served generations of Belfast residents through major social and political changes across more than a century and a half. Its location among the university district has long made it a hub for students as well as locals and visitors. The venue is arranged as three distinct bars. The cosy Traditional Front Bar offers a quiet corner for relaxed drinking; the busy Main Bar comes alive from noon into the evening with nightly entertainment; and the Club is one of Belfast's longest-running and best-loved nightclubs, opening on Wednesday and Saturday nights. Beyond the bars, the pub includes a pool room with several tables and a nightclub space able to hold several hundred people. A garden area between the inn and the neighbouring Wellington Park Hotel, known as the Boho Garden, adds an outdoor space with banquet-style seating and individually themed huts. Long regarded as a destination for food, drink, big-screen sport and a lively night out, the Bot has built its reputation on combining a traditional pub atmosphere with student-friendly nightlife. It is now owned by the Mooney Hotel Group, formerly the Botanic Inn Group. Its enduring popularity in the Queen's Quarter, near the green expanse of Botanic Gardens, has made it a fixture of Belfast life, equally suited to a quiet pint, a meal, a match or a late club night. Few pubs in the city carry the same recognition or the same place in local memory.