{"id":16569,"date":"2016-01-26T14:19:30","date_gmt":"2016-01-26T14:19:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.anfocal.ie\/?p=16569"},"modified":"2016-01-27T12:11:19","modified_gmt":"2016-01-27T12:11:19","slug":"a-storm-in-a-teacup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.anfocal.ie\/index.php\/a-storm-in-a-teacup\/","title":{"rendered":"A storm in a Teacup"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Stormy Teacup cafe. Photo: Caleb Purcell<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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By Aisling O\u2019Connor<\/p>\n

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My An Focal debut was poignant from me. On one hand, it was rather amusing to see my name in print, but on the other, what I had written was an article about the closure of one of my favourite places in Limerick and I was genuinely gutted.<\/p>\n

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Thankfully, Santa came early this year and the caf\u00e9 once again burst into life, serving delicious beverages and treats to all.<\/p>\n

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I sat down with new owner, Adam Reeves, over coffee to discuss what\u2019s in store for The Stormy Teacup.<\/p>\n

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What inspired you to reopen The Stormy Teacup? How did you feel when it initially closed?<\/b><\/p>\n

\u201cThe first I heard of this place was on Facebook when I saw the post about it closing down and I saw the reaction to it and thought there might be something here if we reopened it and took a different approach.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI came up and had a look and decided that we\u2019d see if we could make an offer to the people that did own it in terms of taking it over and there was definitely an opportunity to work something out. That was pretty much it, it was purely a business decision. There was nothing else around it, it was clear cut business.<\/p>\n

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\u201cTo be totally honest, there was no attachment for me and here. The first time I came here was to scope the place out. I wish it was more romantic than that but it was literally a simple business decision.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Did you always want to own a caf\u00e9 or was it something you saw in this place?<\/b><\/p>\n

\u201cI never in a million years saw myself having anything like this, I never saw myself going down the whole food route to be honest. Like, if you said to me six months ago about having something to do with food and drink I would have told you that you\u2019re crazy. I would have been against it, I would have decided against opening it.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI think the pros outweigh the cons in this case and that it made so much business ends that we could work out the whole food and drink barrier afterwards. Everything before that was purely marketing and software based.\u201d<\/p>\n

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What are your plans for the future of The Stormy Teacup?<\/b><\/p>\n

\u201cProduct was the first thing for me, the first building block and our product has to be really good and consistently good. I didn\u2019t feel it was before, the second thing was basic little processes that if they were done well for the future. I\u2019d look at events and things like that and just trying to sweat as much money out of the place we can get to be honest.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Will Stormy classics like movie night and board game nights be returning or is this a new era for The Stormy Teacup?<\/b><\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, absolutely. Most of it, stuff like that, is going to be what people tell us they want. It\u2019s going to be simple as that. They had the movie nights, game nights, that kind of thing, they will all come back there\u2019s clearly demand for them they worked for them before and they\u2019ll work for us now.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe have exciting music stuff happening, I\u2019m a musician in my own right. To be honest I thought that\u2019s where I was going. This Christmas was all going to be working on my bands EP and that kind of thing so music is going to be a big thing here and then you have to look at after hour stuff like the whole space between 1:30 in the morning and 5 o\u2019clock in the morning, that whole area. There\u2019s nothing being done there, I think that could be a good opportunity for us.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Are you a tea or coffee person?<\/b><\/p>\n

\u201cCoffee.\u201d<\/p>\n

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So what\u2019s your favourite drink on the menu?<\/b><\/p>\n

\u201cI always drink a flat white, we do a really good flat white. I was always coffee more than tea but tea is kind of growing on me, like I\u2019m ordering tea, sampling tea, tasting tea, and serving tea so it is definitely growing on me.<\/p>\n

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\u201cBut again, going back to your first question, it was purely a business thing, there was no I didn\u2019t love tea and wanted to own a tea shop. I had no experience in a caf\u00e9, or tea thing before, it\u2019s all new to me. It\u2019s getting more and more 50\/50 as it goes on.\u201d<\/p>\n

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What\u2019s it like to be a young business owner?<\/b><\/p>\n

\u201cTough. It\u2019s tough. It\u2019s fine in terms of the business side of it, I was never worried about the business side of it. I trust myself enough to carry that on, what\u2019s though is when it\u2019s such a public place. I had digital marketing behind me, I had social media marketing, I had sales and all that stuff, it didn\u2019t matter that you were young.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThere were no \u2018you\u2019re operating a company\u2019 and I still am operating a company but no one knows there\u2019s a 19 year old sitting there doing it. Whereas here, I think more and more people are realising that \u2018wait a minute, the dude\u2019s 19\u2019 so I guess there\u2019s that feeling of, in a very paranoid way, what people are saying, people are looking at you going \u2018he\u2019s 19\u2019.<\/p>\n

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\u201cYou\u2019re not gonna be as respected and that stuff, you\u2019re going talking to a bank and you\u2019re going talking to a bank manager and there\u2019s a 19 year old across the table. Stuff like that is strange, it doesn\u2019t make a difference and it\u2019s become very clear for a finish how serious it is and how\u2026 I don\u2019t know what the word is, how beyond my years I am, we are.<\/p>\n

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\u201cBut the only thing is when you\u2019re in such a public role so young, running something as big as this and I am literally the face of the brand and it\u2019s very hard being the face of the brand as big as this when you\u2019re 19. That face is a 19 year old face. You\u2019re in a sea of people who are 40, 50, 60 and that\u2019s tough.\u201d<\/p>\n

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It is difficult to balance the business, and music, and a social life?<\/b><\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, the lads end up getting worried about me, I was getting texts from them, from different groups of friends, kind of going \u2018are you still alive?\u2019. As soon as we decided to do this it has to be a very quick turn over. We didn\u2019t buy this until October so we had literally a month to do all the business side of it, all the physical side of it, renovating and everything that came with it.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI literally had to go head first into it and it was as simple as that. So I just disappeared of everyone\u2019s radar but I think it\u2019s an easy enough balance. It\u2019s gotten to a stage now where it\u2019s grand, which is good, I thought it would be more than that, I thought it would be next summer when\u00a0 I could crawl out of here and get back into the life but it\u2019s not. It\u2019s fine.\u201d<\/p>\n

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How do you feel about seeing this place up and running?<\/b><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s amazing, to be honest, I don\u2019t know. It\u2019s weird to be honest with you, it\u2019s weird to have. I keep saying it, I was never in any business before this, it was never a public thing, I see people coming through to door and it\u2019s something that I own, something that I\u2019m running and that\u2019s weird.<\/p>\n

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\u201cPeople are physically coming to us, and it\u2019s all organic. It\u2019s not in a digital space where they\u2019re coming to you but you\u2019ve made them come to you type of thing, we\u2019re making them come but people are physically coming and bringing their friends, physically ordering something, we\u2019re physically making it, yet to become a normal thing which is cool. It\u2019s still in that fun, exciting sort of stage. It\u2019s very new and exciting, I guess I\u2019d call it. It\u2019s fun, it\u2019s definitely a happy place.<\/p>\n

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@thisdreamsalive<\/i><\/p>\n

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  By Aisling O\u2019Connor   My An Focal debut was poignant from me. On one hand, it was rather amusing to see my name in print, but on the other, what I had written was an article about the closure of one of my favourite places in Limerick and I was genuinely gutted.   Thankfully, […]<\/p>\n

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