Plans lodged for new restaurant on Cork's St Patrick's Street
Merchant's Quay Shopping Centre, Cork. Picture: Denis Minihane.
A planning application has been lodged with Cork City Council seeking the go-ahead to amalgamate a number of upstairs units of the Merchant's Quay Shopping Centre to create a large new restaurant space.
Dublin firm Yolo Party Ltd, headed by Ho Wing, has lodged the plans stating the space will be used for the provision of a 'Wing's World Cuisine' restaurant. The company already runs such an outlet on Dublin's Wolfe Tone Street, described as a casual dining buffet with a variety of cooking stations preparing meals from around the world.
Along with the change of use from retail to restaurant use, the application seeks permission to create a new entrance from St Patrick's Street using an existing private door.
In 2019, the owners of the shopping centre, Clarendon, received planning permission to change the use of the former Kylemore restaurant on the first floor to a licensed restaurant with a new direct pedestrian entrance from Patrick’s St. The company said it wanted to create a new large, first-floor window on the corner of Merchant’s Quay and Patrick’s St to open up the views of the river and St Anne’s in Shandon and that they were planning to attract a “high-quality” restaurant to the location.
The shopping centre was originally built by developer Owen O'Callaghan in 1989, who assembled the long quayside site stretching to the city’s bus station. For decades it has remained a retail fixture at the northern end of the street, anchored by Marks & Spencer and Dunnes Stores.
The adjacent former Roches/Debenhams building has a pending planning application for its redevelopment by new owners, Elverys, to create new retail spaces on the street.
