The Munster businesses cashing in on our coffee cravings

Our insatiable appetite for coffee has led to a number of new businesses cropping up in recent months

Breen Curtin of Blackbird Coffee in Limerick. He is one a number of new coffee-related businesses opening in Munster in recent months. Picture: Brian Arthur

A pandemic that’s closing businesses across the country may not seem like the opportune time to launch a start-up, but for three friends, Covid restrictions were actually the push they needed to launch an idea they had been brewing up for some time.

Tipperary native and coffee connoisseur Cronan Gleeson was finishing up a contract in the US when the pandemic hit. His friend and old flatmate Ben Burns from Limerick had also found himself in a pickle having just started a new job. “It was a case of first in first out, unfortunately,” Mr Gleeson explained, and soon Burns too found himself out of work.