Bewleys
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… sorry if this was already posted.. but when was the building built was it built for Bewleys?
when someone says Save Bewleys i think of a Coffee Company…. if some said to me save the internal and external fabric of the building on Grafton street which houses Bewleys cafe i’d be a bit more interested…?
Built in 1911 and designed by A.G.C Millar for Bewley’s
He also designed the Westmoreland Street and deceased Sth Gt George’s StreetThe windows were designed by Harry Clark in 1928 during a remodelling by McDonnell and Dixon
The website committee of Save Bewleys Cafe wish to thank Paul Clerkin for putting us up on the web at such short notice, stress levels are now down by 99%
Thanks
Kevin, Kevin & Emer
I am heartened to say that our campaign is only gaining the requisite momentum now,
I really had feared that it would start strongly and fade, the width of support has been very encouraging and I will keep you all informed of breaking news as soon as it breakshttp://www.greenparty.ie/en/news/latest_news/dail_motion_to_save_bewleys
http://newsfeed.tcm.ie/irishexaminer/story.asp?j=13266288052&p=y3z66z88z96&n=13266288350
http://www.rte.ie/tv/theden/2004/1124/bewleys.html
Bewleys are closing on Tuesday from what the Nationwide programme said on Friday, what have you got planned for then? Something like last Wednesday I would hope.
Thomond Park, the save bewleys cafe campaign will be there on Tuesday with many of the same elements as those you would have seen last Wednesday. We will have new speakers and a more contemporary music feel, our object is that when the RTE footage goes onto reeling in the years in the future that it will say Bewleys has closed for its second time before entering a phase under a third and hopefully this time a very different management team.
As a group we are only getting organised so you can expect to hear more rather than less over the coming weeks and months. Thanks for your support
It is amazing that so many people have written Bewleys off, Campbells were about the only people not making money out of their cafes, when you consider the slice of the premium the original cafe added to the ambience of Grafton St, what it has done for the tourist industry etc
The trick must be to recreate something of the Bewleys that existed prior to the makeover
@GregF wrote:
Another little bit of European style life is gone……….boulangerie patisserie et cafe, etc….
sorry Bewleys was more Granada Motoway Services food than Boulangeri, patisserie et cafe
Agreed.
And another thing that particularly annoys me is the continuous references to the ‘marble-topped’ tables of the place. They are anything but marble topped – rather they have cheapo melamine-like tops with a veined-effect on the surfaces.
Now I fully agree that the marble should be reinstated – God knows its about the only place nowadays the poor stone can be used without looking dated or frumpy.
I was appalled to find no marble tables in there recently and to feel the MDF underneath the table lip.
Either have timber or stone, not a cheap substitute.Had to laugh at the memories of the cake-tiers on the tables – if old Bewleys does return, they’re something that’ll stay in their grave 🙂
@Rory W wrote:
sorry Bewleys was more Granada Motoway Services food than Boulangeri, patisserie et cafe
Rory your sense of humour is always well apreciated and well directed, but do you not feel that it was more a case of Granada Knutsford running the Willow Room in Glasgow since the revamp?
It is the restoration of the true Bewleys pre-make over that we seek.
We are not Campbell bashing here, but like everything it is horses for courses and Campbells are the best in thew business at facility catering for Colleges and Factories, But Bewleys was not a concept they ever mastered, in our opinion 😉 .
Site now live:
What exactly is being proposed by savebewleys – The web site seems very aspirational but has no real proposal behind it. What is the plan that you want public support for? Is it that the national government povide a grant to subsidise this cafe (or all cafes in the area?) City council to do same? Or a grant to maintain the building? Building to be owned by City Council and leased out to higest bidding franchisee? Civic museum to relocate (with coffeee shop?). Reassess what aspects of it should be on protected buildings list ?
Is the campain just a load of people saying that they wished Bewleys didn’t close (ala all are in favour of motherhood) or is there something I’m missing.
SavebewleysCafe wrote:Rory your sense of humour is always well apreciated and well directed, but do you not feel that it was more a case of Granada Knutsford running the Willow Room in Glasgow since the revamp?
]Bizarrely it was Granada Services Knutsford that I was thinking of when I wrote it!
I agree that a fully restored Bewleys would be great with proper levels and rooms (could make an excellent venue on the upper floors for the ladies that Lunch in that area instead of Fitzers etc for the BT crowd) open a decent mid price restaurant in the great hall (with waitress service). Restore the Mezzanine area to what it used to be (a place for an excellent breakfast or afternoon tea served by friendly waiting staff) and reopen the basement cafe as the place to hang out for hours reading books.
All with proper food and proper coffee
And as one who works in the world of Branding – Campbells should lose the right to the Bewleys name. All they did was asset strip it.
or
Bewleys to rename itself as “Bewleys Oriental Cafe – nothing to do with campbell catering and their mass produced cack – but the proper Bewleys, you know the proper one James Joyce went to!” to use the full title 😉
Ha!
An interesting point on the site is made about the economic contribution it offers to the city centre – Grafton St doesn’t particularly rely on Bewley’s but one would assume that Westmoreland St does to quite a large degree.
If you think of the hole created with the absence of the café on this street, you might well ask is there any hope left for this thoroughfare – Westmoreland St without a familar institution, that’s a big people-puller is not a pleasant thought. Hopefully the cafe will be maintained in some form in the hotel.I was in Grafton St at 12.30 – there’s crowd control at the doors, goodness knows what it’s like at lunchtime.
There’s a fantastic atmosphere inside – a staff member was singing Molly Malone and nearly brought the house down at the end. The place is packed to the rafters with well-wishers and souvenir hunters – one woman asked a waitress to hunt out a cup for her to bring home, she came back with a cardboard one 🙂 I had to make do with a couple of sugar sticks. It’s so funny in the shop area at the front, there are aul ones literally raiding the place for bags of coffee and tins etc. The shelves will be empty by this evening.
It was so full inside I had to stand on the stairs to eat, and balance my coffee on a shelf – so watch out, there’s muffin crumbs all over the floor…
And best of all the staff were incredibly good-natured – another Bewley’s first for Dublin.Graham,
you are absolutely right on Westmoreland St, beyond Bewleys and Tribunal Kennedy’s what business has been there for ten years or more? The Fleet Room is really a Gem and any proposal to restrict access to it must be taken very seriously.
Please forward the online petition to your data base
@Lotts wrote:
What exactly is being proposed by savebewleys – The web site seems very aspirational but has no real proposal behind it. What is the plan that you want public support for? Is it that the national government povide a grant to subsidise this cafe (or all cafes in the area?) City council to do same? Or a grant to maintain the building? Building to be owned by City Council and leased out to higest bidding franchisee? Civic museum to relocate (with coffeee shop?). Reassess what aspects of it should be on protected buildings list ?
Is the campain just a load of people saying that they wished Bewleys didn’t close (ala all are in favour of motherhood) or is there something I’m missing.
I don’t feel there is a need to go down the road of expressing my views on the importance of Bewleys to the Grafton Street area or indeed to Dublin in general. The architectural merit of the interiors and it’s place in the recent history of Dublin are far too important to be lost in the general economic turnover of the high street.
BUT…
I must say I agree to a with “Lotts” here. Its disappointing to see an open-ended petition web site where a negative is expressed but no positive proposed. I’m not a fan of this type of discussion, its non-progressive and lends itself to wallowing in sentimentality and some sort of longing for “better times” e.t.c, e.t.c. I would like to sign a petition that proposes practical moves to maintain the integrity of Bewleys, with public backing, in some innovative way so as it’s historical importance e.t.c can be appreciated. If Bewleys (the cafe business itself not the building) cannot exist as a economic entity (as it doesn’t seem to be able to) lets not turn it into a state sponsored theme park. There is an opportunity here to make a proposal which could act as a precedent for the enevitability of further Dublin landmarks coming under the reality of modern economics. I would be a bit worried that a petition like this might not be taken as seriously as it should be and may just be remembered as some sort of architectural historian’s “Diana” moment.trace Saw Paul Quilligan in his white Bewley’s hard hat fighting the good fight on Sky TV last night.
who’s Paul Quilligan?
Pauline,
You are right about Bewleys and the save Bewleys campaigns have a number of professionals putting together a comprehensive business plan and we are also receiving advice from heritage bodies on how similar projects have been managed elsewhere.
Bewleys can become profitable again, it simply needs a radical reappraisal of its management style and an operator that is not burdened down by a number of other business divisions.
As soon as the plans are fully finished I will post a synopsys here
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