How I stirred up my life

Despite near-misses with a chimney, staff leaving suddenly, frantic dashes to IKEA and terrifying visits from the health inspector, opening my own café was finally worth it, says Sharon Ní Conchúir

LAST year I did something I’d been considering for years. I opened Béile le Chéile — my cafe.

Some of you have contemplated such a venture. Idly stirring your coffee in a bustling café, you have fantasised about the cakes you would bake, the food you would serve, and the chats you’d have with your regulars.

It’s only now, ten months later, that I realise what I have done. I was not an obvious café owner. I was a freelance journalist but long interested in food. I’d worked in cafés and restaurants through school and university.

I loved baking for family and friends. When I set up home with my partner (a man of high food standards), I upped my game when cooking.

When the economy tanked a few years ago, there was less freelance work. Complaining to my sister about the shortfall in my income, she suggested I sell baked goods at my local farmers’ market.

That was the beginning of Little Miss Cupcake, a stall I had at Dingle Farmers’ Market every Friday for three years. It was a great success and developed my interest in food. I started a blog (www.foodiefancies.com), charting my adventures in food. I posted recipes and reviewed restaurants, cafés and books. These reviews led me to where I am.

“Hmm,” I’d think to myself of a restaurant or café. “This place is good, but if I were running it, I’d change this and this and…” Or, “they’ve got a great place here, but they could do better. In fact, I could do better.”

This became a topic of conversation in our house. I was tired of talking about it. I needed to act. I walked around Dingle, listing premises that met my criteria. Because of my shoestring budget, the rent had to be low, the premises needed furnishings, and renovations would have to be done by my partner and I.

I found just the place. It had tables, chairs, a coffee machine and a dishwasher. It wasn’t perfect. It was upstairs in a draughty old building. There were problems with heating. But it had potential and it was affordable. It was mine. All mine.

The whirlwind began. Last January, February, and most of March passed in a haze of cleaning, painting and shopping. I remember one trying trip to IKEA, when I almost lost my mind fitting the contents of five full trolleys into my car. I remember another weekend, when a waitress left, a chimney almost fell off the building, and we hadn’t even opened yet.

There were suppliers, insurance and bins to organise. It was a lot, and it often felt like too much. But help arrived. People left suggestions on my blog. They answered questions on Twitter. Seán Roche of Doyle’s seafood restaurant outlined the lessons he had learned the hard way when he started.

One of my biggest problems was unexpected — finding staff. I placed adverts in local media. I contacted a catering college in Tralee. I spread the word. But applications trickled in.

I became cross as the weeks went by. It took me far longer than I anticipated to find the staff and I had to make one big compromise. I had planned to hire two cooks, but could only find one. Despite having no experience of making food to order, I learned how to be a café cook.

There were other things I had to learn, too.

One was how to deal with a surprise visit from a health inspector who dons an all-in-one boiler suit and stands silently, and terrifyingly, behind you, making notes as you prepare food.

Another was how to be diplomatic when staff make expensive mistakes, or suppliers send you inferior produce. A third was how not to panic when you have an electricity blackout in the middle of a busy service.

More than anything else, there was the tiredness. Setting up any business is stressful and involves challenges, both anticipated and otherwise. But work in the food sector is labour intensive, too. I’d get up at 5am or 6am and go to the café to bake.

I’d be busy until we closed, at 5pm, and then I’d order food for the next day, do the accounts, and clean up. I’d be home — dead on my feet — by 7pm or so, and would go to bed early, only to wake in the middle of the night worrying about all there was to do the following day.

I was in a state of shock. I’d spend all day rushing about on auto-pilot, and once I got to my car every evening I’d burst into tears at the relief of having gone another day without disaster.

Because that’s how it seemed at the beginning — as though I was lurching from day to day, avoiding disaster.

I couldn’t have done it without help. My staff were honest and hardworking and helped me and my café find our feet.

My partner was constantly by my side, helping me to get the café open and always on call when anything went wrong.

My family came through, too. Both my brothers put up much-needed funds at the beginning. One of my sisters worked as a full-time waitress during the summer, and the others lent a hand when they could. Two came in for lunch on a particularly busy day and were drafted into the kitchen, where they washed dishes for hours — proving, for once and for all, that there is no such thing as a free lunch.

Slowly, things began to get better. Customers became regulars and certain menu items became favourites — our chocolate chip cookies, our blueberry scones, Pónaire coffee (from Limerick), and our ever-changing range of seasonal soups served with homemade brown bread.

There were many moments during the year when I could have given up. Opening a café is harder than I could ever have imagined.

But having completed our first season, I feel as though I’ve made the right decision. My second year in business won’t be easy, but I’ve learned a lot and I’m looking forward to making Béile le Chéile even better when we open again next month.

As regards whether I could do it or not, I got a definitive answer to that question at the end of 2012. John and Sally McKenna gave me one of their awards. In the middle of all the stress and exhaustion, I must have been doing something right.