Bewleys
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Sad Day.There goes another Dublin institution. Some bland multiple chain will no doubt take up position in Bewleys Grafton Street. This street is now going to be truly like any other British High Street.
Should the Government (or Dublincity Council) buy the two Bewleys Cafes and lease or develop them as a going concern. While I dont believe that it is the job of the state to aid any particular business, some kind of incentive should be made to try and save this Dublin institution. I certainly dont want to see Starbucks take this prime city centre location. In my opinion Bewleys could be one of Europes great cafes.This is a great pity….I hope that the Harry Clarke stained glass window in the Grafton Street premise won’t be damaged.
David Norris and the like are already on the radio reminiscing about the place….ZZZZZzzzzzzz!They should change their menu to lapdancers, beer and burgers, in good Quaker tradition.
I bet the cafes will continue in some form however…they just need to be revamped and ”sexed up” for a gullible public.
http://www.murraydunloparchitects.com/casestudies/110bathst/index.htm
Ach I’m sorry to read this.
We did Bewleys first project in the UK in Glasgow and a roof the sails half way over Bath Street.
Great blokes but the project cause us no end of grief form the heritage police in Glasgow , still get letters of disgust
i am really sorry about this but not suprised, the management were so annoying. for example, about three monthes ago they introduced a coffee to go style counter, about time, with danishes etc and put three tables in lobby, great, it was really well used and so, about a month ago they removed two of the tables. why? what were they hoping for when they put the tables in. another example, they recently made the ground floor table service and moved self-service upstairs, that’s exactly the wrong way around, self-service people want to be able to just walk in, people having a sit down affair like the sense of occassion that comes with going upstairs.
i hope to god that the only effect of this is that the grafton street cafe will be taken over by someone who can run it.
It sounds like an opportune time to give Harvey Nicholes the space they have been looking for on Grafton St. In my opinion Bewleys have purposefully let the cafes go to ruin because they saw the value in the retail space. The quality has be crap for years.
now it would be a real shame if it became retail, all the wood, the stain glass, that must be listed in a way that would make it hard to convert it into retail.
so, are bewley’s incompetant or evil?
well why cant they keep the shopfronts and glass etc, but change the shop. i never really liked bewleys anyway, and wasnt a lot to write home about. bring on harvey nics!
I blame the McCafe.;)
Why Bewleys closed
1) premises too big
2) worst coffee in Dublin
3) overpriced ‘canteen style food’
4) revamp of late 90’s killed original atmosphere
5) management more interested in the brand for teas and coffees in the US than running cafe, let alone the hotel franchises
6) poor value for money
7) dreadful service
8) change in coffee drinking habits
9) no longer a draw due to all of the aboveOriginally posted by bluefoam
It sounds like an opportune time to give Harvey Nicholes the space they have been looking for on Grafton St. In my opinion Bewleys have purposefully let the cafes go to ruin because they saw the value in the retail space. The quality has be crap for years.i would tend to agree with you…
genuinely saddened, but it hasnt been the same since the mid 90s makeover…. manys the evening, i topped of my beer with a bif fry at midnight there….
Originally posted by Paul Clerkin
manys the evening, i topped of my beer with a bif fry at midnight there….Yeah, they just started closing earlier & earlier, first 10pm then 8pm.
folks tell me that, in the 60s & 70s, the whiff of coffee on the street walking by the Westmorland & Graft St. branches would knock you out & their cakes were extremely fine – & the quality nosedived when campbells catering took over.
Still, there’s a current planning application in (ref. 4445/04) to expand the Bewley’s Hotel on Fleet St/ Westmoreland St into the foreign language school on the upper floors of the Cafe on Westm. St (including the “replacement of period windows to front facade at 10,11 & 12 Westm. St.” (graham!)) which the architects brazil lohan say in their covering letter “forms part of the masterplan for the whole site which is currently being prepared for planning application”.
(???)
we do need another large bookshop, borders would be my choice, but please please lets have it on dawson street so we’ll have a bookshop street.
Im glad its going it was always a kip since the late eighties
Hope the staff find BETTER PAID jobs – they were really bad employers. Rates were truly awful.
Heres to there overpriced rubbish food and coffee vanishing forever!
I hadn’t seen the piece in the paper – just saw it now – looks like the news puts the tin hat on that planning application
I agree it would make a great book shop, But feel that it is more likely to ressemble River Island a few makeovers later
In its present form it is absolutely no use to attract the type of retailer required to attract open market rental values, it would need to be altered beyond recognition for clothes or any other retail use other than as a cafe or bookshop.
I really am begining to question the rationale behind the purchase, as I feel the initial yield of 7.43% adequately reflects the ‘protected status’ of the property.
Given that prime retail yields at the time of the transaction were c 4% it is fair to discount current rental vales by about 40-45% thus giving a rental cost well below the market value.
It hasn’t been Bewleys for a long time and how could it have been sure there wasn’t an Irish person working there for years.
I wish Campell catering would also find my workplace unprofitable, the food is like chewing a car tyre sometimes.BTW I hope that some form of cafe remains maybe on the first or second floors, it would be a big loss not to be able to go into one of Dublins most famous places.
Interestingly the old Bewleys in Georges St seems to be doing more business now than before it was a Bewleys, the wine licence certainly helps.
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