Bewley’s cafés, Dublin.

Posted in Old blogger by Twenty Major on October 29th, 2004

I see Bewley’s Cafés on Westmoreland Street and Grafton Street are to close with the loss of more than 200 jobs in Dublin. Not much of a surprise. Let me tell you why.

If you’re on the continent and you go into even the shittiest little café and order a coffee they take a scoop of fresh coffee, do the do with their machines, add the milk and it’s a guaranteed winner every time. In Spain and Italy in particular the coffee is fantastic and cheap too.

You go into Bewleys and you get a giant mug which is filled up from a cauldron of coffee that they’ve stewed up early that morning. It’s like drinking hot mud, except not as nice. It’s been like that for years. I just don’t understand why they haven’t closed earlier.

Obviously they’ve got a lot of history. Bewley’s cafés are long associated with Dublin’s literary scene and for as long as I can remember the early opening was a winner with Debs ball attendees as they staggered around town looking for an early breakfast.

Back in the day I used to always arrange to meet friends outside Bewleys on Grafton Street, not that you’d ever really go in, but it’s halfway down the street and handy for when you had to meet friends who had the misfortune of living on the Northside of town.

But now they’re going to close. And it’s their own fault for serving muck for years. No doubt it’ll be snapped up by somebody like Starbucks who can serve giant beakers of triple-decaff-mocha-choca-latté for €4 a pop and the homogonisation (is that a word, if not it should be) of the world can continue at pace.

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This court case about Eamon Dunphy, the bouncer and the kiss is quite revolting, isn’t it? Obviously this big tough bouncer feels terribly emasculated having been given a smacker by the former Milwall player but I think I’d be more concerned about getting the appropriate shots than looking for compensation.