History & Philosophy

Humble beginnings

Just before the Covid Lockdowns of March 2020 a plastic wrapped pallet appeared in the garage of St Martin’s Park. What joys lay beneath this protective cocoon ?

A gift from the gods (well Helen actually). A prime quality smoker, the start of a fascination of cooking over flames.

It quickly found its home twixt a collection of wheelie bins and a rotten child’s swing in a scene more becoming of the set of Shameless than a place you’d actually want to eat.

But most importantly, it brought folk together – and at this point it was known simply as Damian’s Barbecue Bar & Grill (‘cos Nolan made him a sign, it was a wonderful kind gesture and we didn’t have the heart to say it was a truly shit name).

All the Gear & No Idea

In typical fashion, the proprietor got to what he knows best – buying unnecessary tat. Loads of it. Needle thermometers, wireless meat probes, South American rain forest charcoal, a collection of smoking woods, kamado spotlights, a collection of machetes the point for which still escapes everyone and more tongs than a night in Beefa.

The cooking equipment grew too. A rotisserie spit, Sous Vide pre cooking and all the grill plates ever produced.

The food remained disappointingly shit with the added bonus of it now took a good couple of hours for this clown to get everything set up.

Now We’ve Started

Then it hit. The inspiration that would change everything. The internet. What if we searched the world wide web and the you tube to see what other people were doing and more importantly, how they did it. We could surely just copy like all the best artists.

And that was it, before you knew it we were smoking butts, rolling porchetttas and spinning lamb legs with a Cape Town marinade.

The greatest change though was the team we formed. Helen preparing everything in the background, the marinades, the stuffing, the tedious detail – everything. Then it’s handed over to me who apart from lighting a fire and clicking tongs together does pretty much fuck all apart from place it on the heat and take all the praise as some kind of BBQ god. Perfect.

The Birth of the Brand

2023 was a big year with a significant venue upgrade – we moved !

As we shifted the Kamado into a ready made, sheltered area perfect for an outdoor kitchen, myself and Eli mused..

M: “I think we’ll have a little outdoor kitchen and bar area here Eli, kind of like a little pub. But not like one of those sheds that folk put in their garden with a sign saying “Dave’s Bar” with some tacky neon lights and tedious trappings. What do you think”

E: “Sounds good. Those shed bars really are crap so I’m down with it being different to that”.

M: “What shall we call it ?”

The 10 yr old pondered on it. To him, he still considered pubs to be grubby places where folk smoke tabs n pipes and drink mucky beer.

E: “What about, The Dirty Pipe”

The legend was born.

And even though I and every childish adult knows exactly what it means, it was from the mouth of a child. So that made it ok. Nobody could argue. It wasn’t rude. No sireee Bob. It was his idea, not mine. So there. End of.

Annoying W***** !

“Bubb….Do us a logo, do us a pub sign image, can I have it now ?”

“Ooh, I could do T shirts for visitors – Lugz, what should I put on my T Shirts”

“Noooolaaaaaan, can you make me some coasters, An oak hanging pub sign and every other million favours please”

“Dan…Dan…Dan…Dan…Dan…how do you do an website n that”

It takes a village the saying goes…to support the pointless whims of the village idiot