West Cork seafood restaurant for sale for €825,000

The local institution in and beyond Bantry was set up as one of Munster’s earliest specialist seafood restaurants 60 years ago

O'Connor's Seafood restaurant Bantry SFON

A leading and long-established seafood restaurant on West Cork Wild Atlantic Way — by the main square in Bantry town — has come up for sale, with vacant possession on offer, and currently trading.

Gone to the open market as a local catch is the highly regarded O’Connor’s Seafood Restaurant.

This local culinary institution in and beyond Bantry was set up as one of Munster’s earliest specialist seafood restaurants 60 years ago by locals Matt and Martha O’Connor.

The pair saw the potential in fish and seafood and also got involved back in the very earliest days of mussel farming in the mild temperature bays of West Cork.

It was sold by their son, former Cork footballer Mark O’Connor in the early to mid-2000s (another family member is journalist Alison O’Connor).

The O’Connor surname stayed over the door into that next ownership, and into the next also

Decades ago, it traded as a grill bar known as The Clarendon.

It was last purchased around 2016 by the colourful Ted Toye from Britain.

Mr Toye, along with his wife Anna, ostensibly “retired” to West Cork.

However, Mr Toye took up building and personally-driven renovation projects — including an initial restoration burst of the long-derelict Glengarriff.

Following his death, Glengarriff Castle on 87 acres was passed on in an approximately €2.75m sale via Sherry FitzGerald O’Neill/SF Countrywide, to a buyer from Northern Ireland.

Several other Toye family properties including a private residence Martello House — have also since come for sale with the same agency down through the years.

Now, Sherry FitzGerald O’Neill/SF Countrywide’s Ray O’Neill and Olivia Hanafin are selling O’Connor’s Seafood Restaurant.

They say it has been considerably invested in while in the Toye family’s ownership, as the town has continued to build on its tourism and food reputation — with the West Cork Literary Festival coming in July and the annual Chamber Music Festival later in the year.

Facing Wolfe Tone Square, the property has a €825,000 asking price.

It is a three-storey traditional town centre prominent building, some 352 sq m (3,790 sq ft), and has a now-extended ground floor restaurant — seating for up to 85 people — with a novel, sensory wall at the back for amusing children during family meal visits.

At mid-level, it has an open plan living area and kitchen to the front, rear offices, plus stores. The top floor has three bedrooms and a family bathroom.

The agents say the ground floor is “designed to be adaptable,” with kitchen and ancillary facilities, preparation kitchen, cold rooms, dry goods storage area, waiting area, and WCs also at ground.

It’s freehold and, while it’s currently let, the lease is due to expire in February 2025. When sold, it can be taken on with vacant possession by new operators or leased again.

DETAILS: Sherry FitzGerald O’Neill/SF Countrywide 027-31030.