COVID & COFFEE: ‘It’s not for the faint hearted but you have to lean into it and learn how to become resilient’
Converted horseboxes, trailers and caravans with the wafting aroma of freshly ground coffee have been proving hugely popular for the public looking for any form of escape during lockdown. MICHAEL KEAVENY spoke to two sets of entrepreneurs who took a leap of faith in setting up new normal businesses
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Gulp - Riona Gilroy and James McCarthy, Garlow Cross
Having spent a number of years working abroad in both retail and software/artificial intelligence respectively, Meath couple Riona Gilroy and James McCarthy saw the success of drive-thru coffee outlets and felt that they could replicate it at home.
Combining their varied backgrounds February they opened up a converted 1950s style American airstream into a coffee shop called Gulp and have been going from strength to strength since.
“I had been over the Boston and had seen drive-thrus work really well”, said James who is from Garlow Cross. “I felt given the amount of traffic at Garlow it would be something that could work really well here. There’s also not a lot of coffee shops open before 9am, especially in rural areas so we felt if we could provide both really good coffee and service we could do very well.”
One aspect of Gulp’s success which has come as a surprise to both James and Riona is the support they have received from the local community. “It’s a rural area but you’d be surprised at how many people live here” said James. “A good chunk of our customer base comes from people in the Skryne/ Walterstown area and we’ve been blown away by the support. Because we open at 7am we get a lot of tradespeople on their way to work. After that there’s people on the school run.
"We also get a lot of people taking breaks from working from home and at weekends, people have begun to factor us into their cycling routes for a break. A lot of people have messaged us to say they’ll come to us from places like Kells, Dunshaughlin, Castleknock etc. once the 5km travel limit has been lifted”.
As with any new business judging how much stock to buy at the start was difficult, but they’ve been able to learn on the job. “Starting out its pie in the sky stuff,” said Riona. “No two days are the same. You can’t judge one day’s or even one week’s sales as a blueprint. There might be a surge in customers because people are trying somewhere new or it could be a slower steadier growth. You might over or under order stuff, but the important thing is how you handle it. You have to roll with the punches. It’s not for the faint hearted but you have to lean into it and learn how to become resilient.”