After the flood: How Sally O'Brien made Farmgate a success story in Lismore

When her well-known Farmgate Midleton restaurant closed following the town's flood, owner Sally O'Brien decided to head east to Waterford, and she tells Deirdre McArdle it was a magical move

Sally O'Brien at award-winning Farmgate Lismore in Main Street. "I settled in here incredibly quickly. And the town, they were so welcoming," she says. Picture: Dan Linehan

Nestled unobtrusively on Main St in Lismore, Co Waterford, is Sally O’Brien’s next chapter. A sequel, if you will, to the hugely popular Farmgate Midleton.

As we chat, it’s clear that the trauma of the Midleton floods three years ago, and the loss of a 40-year legacy, is still very close to the surface. Sally admits she hadn’t fully processed what had happened in the Cork town before she pushed headlong into setting up her new business in nearby Lismore.

Sally recalls the aftermath of the flood. “Like everyone else in Midleton, we were in cleaning, cleaning, cleaning. But every day we went back in, the effluent water was back again. We couldn’t understand it. It was like it was seeping out of the walls.”

In 1987, when Sally’s mother Máróg bought the building, it was “an old tyre shed with a galvanised roof and a car pit”. This meant it “drank whatever came through that day and the effluent water got trapped in the walls”.

While other businesses in Midleton were making in-roads into getting back on track in October, 2023, at Farmgate the news was to become even more grim. The engineer’s report went beyond what Sally could ever have feared.

“I had been thinking he might say the electrics would need to be all replaced, but what I didn’t imagine was that he would say that cleaning wouldn’t solve the problem, and that as a food business, we couldn’t come back in there as it was.”

She confesses that the news took a long time to sink in.

I was nearly open here [in Lismore] and trading before it actually started to sink in. I went into autopilot very quickly.

Telling her mother was one of the most difficult parts. “Because she didn’t have a visual of how bad it was, it was hard for her to grasp it. She’s very smart, but trying to digest it and understand how a couple of weeks ago this place was thriving and now it was unsalvageable — she took it desperately hard.”

Sally also had to tell her team, some of whom had worked at Farmgate for more than 20 years. She and Máróg were determined to ensure the employees were paid redundancy. “That was important to us. But the cost of exiting the business, including getting everything out of the building, wiped the company out completely. Financially, the company was gone.”

Sally, a single mum of two, knew she needed to come up with a plan for what to do next.

My mum wanted me to retrain and do something completely different to have an easier life after what happened.

Years before, in 2018, her mother had bought a building in Lismore on the main street with a plan to open it as a wine bar. “But then covid hit, and having to look after everything in Farmgate Midleton meant that was the end of those ideas.”

But at the end of 2023, the Lismore property began to look like a fresh start to Sally. “It seemed the obvious place to come to at that point. The real deciding factor for me came when I met our Farmgate head chef David Doran and I told him I was toying with the idea of starting again in Lismore and I asked him if he would think of coming with me. He said yes instantly, and that was my decision made.”

The property in Lismore was a former pub that closed back in 2002. Sally says the building was never meant to be a restaurant so she needed to pump a lot of work and money into it.

“It’s a heritage building too, which actually was a good thing as you’re restricted in terms of the changes you can make. My goal was to make it commercially viable without losing the lovely charm of the place.”

A team of local tradespeople started work on the property in January, 2024. As Sally walks me through it, she outlines details like the beautiful stained glass around the front door, and the original flooring, which the trades needed to recreate sympathetically.

“It needed an awful lot of work to refurbish it and turn it into a restaurant. We worked hard to preserve what was here, keeping the look of the place but making it aesthetically nicer. It was a labour of love.

“Our builders were amazing. They started in January, and we had our soft opening on June 14. They did a brilliant job.” Throughout it all, Sally says she was plagued by uncertainties and worry. “Given what we’d been through, I kept thinking, what if this doesn’t work, am I going to be in double trouble? There were certainly days I wanted to go onto the sofa and cry, but we just had to keep going. And now, looking around I can’t believe that in that very short space of time we pulled it all off.”

The logistics and physical work were one thing, but Sally also wrestled with the psychological aspect of leaving the Cork base.

“Farmgate Midleton was like a second home. As a child, after school I’d go to the restaurant and have my shepherd’s pie, a glass of milk, and some raw carrots. And in my early 20s, my mum asked me to go in just for a short stint, and that was it.

“Truthfully, even when I was opening here, I genuinely thought, how am I ever going to have any sense of this being home. I did think it could take years until I feel settled here.”

Instead, Sally says something about the building made her feel instantly at home. “It’s a really calm space. I settled in here incredibly quickly. And then the town, they were so welcoming. It’s an amazing community here. They love to see new places opening up.”

Two years later, and Sally’s risk is paying off. Farmgate Lismore is thriving. Guests come from all over west Waterford and Cork — including regulars from Midleton who make the 40-minute drive. The clincher for Sally is how many people have commented on the positive feel of the place.

“Even though it’s a totally different building to Midleton, as they set foot through the front door for their first time, they’re like, ‘Oh my God, this still feels like Farmgate’.”

What Sally has created in Lismore, together with head chef David Doran, is getting noticed in culinary circles. In January, it was awarded a Michelin Bib Gourmand for “good-quality, good-value, and produce-led cooking”, and in June it was named Michelin Bib of the Month. Separately, in May, Farmgate Lismore was named the All-Ireland Winner for Best Casual Dining at the Irish Restaurant Awards.

Three years on from what may have been a sad ending of a wonderful legacy, Farmgate Lismore is honouring what Sally’s mother built and charting its own path.

“I was always very proud of what mum had done over the years, and what she’d achieved, and now we’re trying to keep that legacy going and building on it,” says Sally.

“I feel very lucky that I love what I do. I love the team that I’m working with. It’s a joy to come in here.”