End of an era as Cork's iconic Quay Co-op restaurant to close after 44 years
Arthur Leahy in the foreground with new custodians Donal O’Gara, Virginia O’Gara and Wayne Dunlea of My Goodness outside the Quay Co-Op on Sullivan’s Quay. Picture: Chani Anderson.
Cork’s legendary Quay Co-Op vegetarian restaurant is shutting up shop for good after 44 years, ending one of the longest-running stories in Irish hospitality.
The iconic location has also served as HQ for multiple social justice campaigns over the decades and will be taken over by Cork-based My Goodness Food.
“The age of the ten Co-Op members was the big thing,” said Arthur Leahy of the Quay Co-Op, who recently celebrated his 80th birthday.
“The restaurant has been going in some form or other since 1982 — prior to closing it was the second oldest restaurant in Cork — and to run a good restaurant you need somebody who is committed to food and we no longer have that kind of energy or commitment or those skills from the membership.”
Founded in 1982 as a community collective effort of feminist, lesbian and gay, environmental and other alternative groups and individuals, the Quay Co-Op provided a base for social movements including gay rights, the 1983 anti-abortion amendment, the Criminal Justice Bill and the first Divorce Referendum.
In order to financially support the collective project, a food co-op, shop and restaurant were added on but soon developed a life of their own, especially the restaurant, which introduced generations of Corkonians to vegetarian food, then mostly a scoffed-at novelty.
Many fans, however, will be delighted to hear that nationally-renowned vegan enterprise My Goodness Food is to take over the restaurant space, with the co-operative continuing to run the shop, bakery and bookshop as separate enterprises.
There were multiple applications to take on the restaurant, which had to remain vegetarian, a non-negotiable for the Co-Op members.
“My Goodness have a very strong ethic around food — stronger even than the Co-Op had,” said Arthur. “Their food is actually vegan and they operate a very supportive culture for their own workers and the local farmers and producers they source from.”
Virginia O’Gara, co-founder of My Goodness Food, which operates at markets and festivals around Cork and Ireland and has an outlet in Cork’s English Market, had been back in the US to be with her dying father when Arthur approached her husband Donal to see if My Goodness would be interested in taking over the restaurant.
“We’re pretty good with where we are right now as a business, doing what we want to do and the way we want to do it,” said Virginia.
Virginia grew up in Dallas, Texas and met Donal O’Gara, from Donegal, when she came to study permaculture at Kinsale Community College in 2006. She is now Ireland’s leading vegan chef.
Arthur and the members were well-acquainted with My Goodness from its early days when My Goodness ran the cafe in The Other Place LGBT Community Centre, an offshoot of the Quay Co-Op, in Cork city, until the centre closed permanently after a fire in 2015.
This previous relationship meant Arthur and the members were aware of how much their respective ethics and politics aligned, not just on food but around social justice and activist campaigning, with the Co-Op the current centre for Cork’s Palestine solidarity campaigning.
“We looked around to see if we could find someone to carry on the tradition of the place and My Goodness were the most suitable candidates,” said Arthur.
“We’ve always stuck with vegetarian and we wanted somebody that would fit in with the aspirations of the Co-Op as also represented by the shop and the book shop, where I’ve ‘retired’ to.”
Virgina said: “When we ran The Other Place cafe we were one small part of a larger group of activists, artists, empaths and outsiders working together and that’s where I feel at home, and the Co-Op has always been that for me.
“In food terms, we are a good fit for the Co-Op restaurant space, but we are the ones who also understand that space is more than just a cafe — it’s always been that and always needs to remain as that to honour the legacy of what the co-op and all its community have created.
My Goodness Food will begin the new era on Sullivan’s Quay with a pop-up restaurant opening on December 14, running until Christmas and they will then close for a period before opening fully in the new year.
