Short Trips to the Northside

From a very early age I can remember being brought on a trip by Bus to our relations on the Northside of Dublin. We had 3 sets of Aunties, Uncles and Cousins, all living near the Navan Road and all lived within walking distance. More about the Navan Road gang later but our short journey was by Bus and we had to get two buses. We used to go in to town and get off in Westmorland Street. The next bus was on the Quay (River Liffey). Breaking the journey Mam always brought us to Bewleys Oriental Cafe in Westmorland Street. One of my oldest memories was being brought in beside one of the open fireplaces to warm up. Bewleys original Cafes finally closed down in 2004. The owners claiming big and mounting losses, despite the Cafes seemingly doing good business and a reputation for fairly high prices and well fairly average food. What Bewleys was really famous for was its decoration, ambience, and a nice place to meet friends over a cake and white coffee. The Cafe in Westmorland remains closed but still intact and looks relatively unchanged from the early 60's when I first visited. In the 60's the wallpaper was Chinese/Japanese in design, mainly black with red and gold birds, Pagodas etc. Dad liked the design so much that we had similar wallpaper in our dining room! Bewleys always did things slightly different. For example you could order toast with the butter melted on it. Later when they dropped this they claimed it was for hygiene reasons and also refused to serve toast after 12.00. Also they used to have their own dairy in Rathfarnham and you could have milk with extra cream as well as regular milk. Of course over the years all these quirks were dropped, waitress service was dropped, and of course prices were raised. Despite this Bewleys first went bust in the early 80's and changed hand. Dad often said how could it be possible to lose money when they must have sold at least 1,000 cups of coffee a day apart from meals and breakfasts. It must have been bad management! When the final day came I went in to town to meet one of my friends in Bewleys for one last Bewleys specials. Sausage, Egg, Beans and Chips and White Coffee and a Cream Cake. Not High Cuisine but still a treat, and I remembered all the meals I had over the years.
On the last evening RTE, the main Irish Television Station had a special programme from Bewleys in Westmorland Street. The Cafe in Grafton Street has re opened but it is run by a different company and its simply the same name but quite different inside. There still is a small coffee shop inside but the magic is gone for me. In truth the food was never the best quality, service was poor, tables and chairs always creaked and rocked. The 'complaints cards' were always useful to fix the legs of the tables.