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Bewley’s Cafe has re-opened…but will it work?

Written by Joerg Steegmueller
Bewley’s Cafe has re-opened…but will it work?

It only took close to 3 years and 12 mio, but since last Wednesday, Bewley’s Cafe in Grafton Street is open again. Only the ground floor opened for now. The first floor will follow in January and in March the Theatre will open as well.

It is good that it is back and didn’t become a Starbucks like too many other places in Dublin, but it remains to be seen if it will still have the old Bewley’s Charm or if it will become another “coffee factory”. Instead of the original 180 seats, the new cafe will have 500 (!!) seats and will need to make a HUGE amount of money to a) pay the rent and b) get the massive renovation cost back.

Campbell Catering is running Bewley’s after it bought the Cafe business from the Bewley family in 1986. The Cafe in Grafton Street was originally owned by the Bewley’s family but was then sold and leased back to get cash into the company. The cash is most likely gone and the accountants/advisors that suggested that mad strategy are also probably long gone, but a rent of close to 1.5 mio per year is still there and is crippling the company. So just to pay the rent, the business needs to make a profit of EUR 4,000 per day. Profit! Not turnover! :-O Add running costs and staff costs and “raw material” cost and a proportion of the renovation cost and you can see that these 500 seats need to make a LOT of money.

Let’s hope that it will work out, otherwise it might be another Starbucks. :-(

Dublin, ,

A Time House in Dublin? What is that?

Written by Joerg Steegmueller
A Time House in Dublin? What is that?

I seem to be one of the last people to find out about this or are you maybe also new to that concept? A Time House is a venue where you pay for the time you spend there and already for just about a year :-O there is a Time House in Dublin. My excuse is that it is not free, therefore I didn’t find about it earlier, but it is a really interesting concept and therefore I want to tell you about it today.

The Clockwork Door is Dublin’s first and only (as far as I know!) Time House. It is located at 51 Wellington Quay, which is very near to Ha’Penny Bridge, next to EaTokyo and they run lots of different events.

But how does it work? Well, it is intriguingly simple. You pay for every minute you are in the Time House (8 cent per minute in the first 2 hours, 6 cent per minute in the next 2 hours and 5 cent for the rest of the day). So if you stay there for 3 hours, it would cost you 9.60+3.60=13.20. For that you will get unlimited tea, coffee, biscuits, wi-fi, board games, video games and the use of 5 different rooms + kitchen. The max cost per day is EUR 20 but you can also go for the membership option where you pay EUR 60 for the whole month and you have unlimited access for that price.

Events don’t cost extra and – because the people running the place would love you to stay there for a looong time ;-) – there are always interesting events happening. (You can bring your own food, but alcohol is not allowed.)

The rooms are kitted out for working/studying, or for lounging or for playing (board and video games) etc. The website has pictures of the rooms and lots more information. Oddly the website doesn’t specify the opening hours, but I found elsewhere that the Time House is open from 10:00-22:00. I really like the idea and for a price of between EUR 3 and EUR 4.80 per hour with tea and biscuits and wi-fi included, it could be an interesting drop-in place for some, even during the day. Beats Starbucks any day! ;-) Find out more details here www.clockworkdoor.ie/the-clockwork-door/ the Facebook Page is here www.facebook.com/theclockworkdoor/

[They also have a separate “Escape Room” where you play games to find the key to get out again. It is called The Clockwork Key but is not included in the “Time House” concept, it is a separate operation and priced differently.]

Dublin, Events, Tourism,

No fairness regarding M50 tolls!

Written by Joerg Steegmueller
No fairness regarding M50 tolls!

Are you a person that usually pays the bills you get? And do you expect that other people do the same so that you don’t fund and support them with your money? Toll payments on the M50 don’t work like that!

The Public Accounts Committee of the Dail was told by Nigel O’Neill of the public sector organisation Transport Infrastructure Ireland that in the last two years a total of EUR 10.1mio was written off in unpaid tolls. :-O It gets your blood boiling when you think that this bridge that is now owned by the state, forces you and me to pay the toll, but one car out of every 22 will get away paying nothing. Over 1 mio journeys remained unpaid as RTE reports.

Dublin, Taxes, Tourism, Traffic, , , , ,

Discount food markets in Ireland are most popular shops

Written by Joerg Steegmueller
Discount food markets in Ireland are most popular shops

Every month, Kantar Worldpanel provides an update on market share of the different food shops in Ireland and the headline this time – at least on RTE News – is “SuperValu remains largest grocery retailer“. This is definitely correct when you look at the market share numbers, but what I find a lot more interesting is that the two discount supermarkets Aldi and Lidl are combined the largest food sellers in Ireland.

They are two separate shops and on one hand you can’t shouldn’t combine their market share. But on the other hand they BOTH have – in contrast to the others – a rather unique approach to selling food, where own branded products is the majority of products.

The figures are SuperValu 22.1%, Tesco 22.0%, Dunnes Stores 21.6%, Lidl 11.8%, Aldi 11.6%

So if you combine Lidl and Aldi, you arrive at 23.4% and if you compare it to how close the other three are to each others, then a lead of 1.3% is HUGE!

There are still people in Ireland that have never bought anything in Lidl or Aldi and there are still parts of Dublin (Castleknock!) that fight tooth and nail against one of the discounters opening in prime locations there. Odd! Maybe it is a type of snobbery? It certainly is not smart.

 

Dublin, Society, , , , , , , ,

MyTaxi increases charges by EUR 2

Written by Joerg Steegmueller
MyTaxi increases charges by EUR 2

I know, they would argue that they are not doing that, but if you check your wallet after using a MyTaxi Taxi, you will have EUR 2 less in it than last week, so to me that is an increase.

But let’s start that story at the beginning:
On Wednesday MyTaxi informed their customers that from midnight on that same Wednesday (Thanks for the advance warning! :-O ) MyTaxi drivers would (be allowed to) charge a EUR 2 booking fee for all bookings via the app or phone.

According to MyTaxi, they had told their drivers not to charge that fee in the past, but they are not telling them that anymore and consequently the drivers will/might add that EUR 2 now.

The charge is allowed by the National Transport Authority (NTA) which regulates the taxi fares, so MyTaxi think they are fully compliant with all rules and regulations and probably to add insult to injury, they are claiming on their website (ie.mytaxi.com/pricingpolicy) that “We’re confident that by implementing this change, mytaxi drivers will offer an ever-improving, market-leading service when you need it most.”

Ask your customers and you will be told that you aren’t providing an “ever-improving” service.

I am no expert on Taxi fare history, but it wouldn’t surprise me if that “booking fee” is from the olden days when taxis where “controlled” by radio. You rang their head office/dispatcher and the head office told the driver where to pick you up. The EUR 2 were possibly the charge the head office got. But since you can’t request a MyTaxi taxi any other way than through the app (unless you go to a taxi rank) and because that middle man is not there anymore, it might be that that booking fee is well outdated!?

Either way, it is an effective increase of EUR 2, so now before you drive a metre, you will have to pay EUR 5.60 during the day and EUR 6 at night and – as I reported last week in the Dublin News section of the Dublin Event Guide – this charge will increase in February to EUR 5.80 and EUR 6.00.

I hope we will get the proper Uber service soon (not the crippled Uber service that we have currently)! It seems that some taxi competition is urgently needed. I am aware that Uber is not perfect either and the fact that they lost their license for London in the last few days shows this clearly, but I’d think Uber is fixable.

Dublin, Tourism, Traffic, , , ,
 
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