In Scotland my "local" is the Bowler's Rest, in less-then-salubrious Leith (well, there and the New Club). Try as they might, no one in the USA will ever get it right-- it might look like a pub, they might call it a pub, it might even be owned by a fellow Brit or Mick-- but at the end of the day it will still be a themed tavern in America. That's not meant as a put down, merely a statement of fact. One may enjoy having their pint at Paddy O'Furiture's Old Wicklow Arms somewhere in New Jersey, but the experience will be different than if swilling that same pint at Doheny Nesbits or the Bleeding Horse in Dublin.

Put aother way, one could build a wild west town in central Britain, but no matter how accurate it was-- even if it was constructed from a ghost town bought in Colorado, dismantled and shipped to England where it was rebuilt board by board-- it would never be "the real deal". That's because, ultimately, Britain (or Ireland) isn't the USA. To experience the real "Old West" one would have to go to America.

And to experience a real pub, one has to go to the UK or Ireland because they just aren't to be found in shopping malls, or in the trendy neighborhoods of the USA.