Rooney's Irish Pub in Abacoa Town Center, Jupiter, Florida

Rooney's Irish Pub in the Abacoa Town Center in Jupiter, Florida, is in a great location. Within one mile, either way, there's a baseball stadium or a college campus. This means guaranteed business for Rooney's. Rooney's is owned by the same Rooney family that owns the Pittsburgh Steelers. The restaurant claims to offer traditional Irish food, but Rooney's has a lot left to be desired as far as that goes.

That's not to say that the food they serve isn't any good, but it is definitely far from traditional. The fish and chips, which anyone should recognize as being a staple of the diet in the British Isles and Ireland, is a huge case in point. I ordered the fish and chips because I feel there is nothing better than drinking a Guinness and having some good fish and french fries to go with it. First off, the menu says "it's just like your local chipper would do." I can guarantee that if I lived in Ireland and had a local chipper, he wouldn't serve Gordon's Fisherman fillets from a box and Ore-Ida curly fries. On top of that, there wasn't even any malt vinegar on the table to go with the fish and chips.

Ordering drinks at Rooney's has to be the high point of a night out there. They have a lot of beer in both the bottle and on draft. The problem is that it can take a while for your drink order to appear at the table. But when the beer does come, or shots for that matter, it's the best part of the evening. Then again alcohol is the best part of any evening out.

The prices at Rooney's leave a lot to be desired as well. Beer, even the cheap brands, can cost $5 a glass, which quickly adds up. On top of that, most of the food on the menu, save for the appetizers and a few of the salad choices, costs between 10 and 15 dollars a plate. So Rooney's has good atmosphere and the food isn't bad, but too bad it's not actually traditional.

The service leaves a lot to be desired as well, but I'll give a pass on that since there's usually only two wait persons working the place and it is usually crowded, so service would naturally be a little on the slow side. It's good for a night out with friends, just socializing and having fun, nothing more, nothing less.