Originally published in print in February 2024.

 

It was one of those icy cold mornings when it covered everything from the grass to the cars and buildings, and all traffic seemed to stop. I (Agne) set out, bright and early (much brighter and earlier than I’d prefer) to meet up with Ciara, who was to give Jenny Lyons, owner and manager of the independent coffee shop Provender and Family, an interview. 

 

I arrived to see a cosy cafe full of friendly faces and appetising dishes laid out on the counter. ‘Let’s go to my car’, Jenny Lyons offered. The cafe is too small to comfortably accommodate the three of us (although that only further helps it create a welcoming and familial atmosphere). Jenny’s car is her office, she told us. It is cramped in a way that feels lived-in and cherished. It is obvious her car is significant in her day-to-day life: child seat, library books, documents and other items and trinkets. It smells of coffee and a faint undercurrent of mint. I sit next to her in the passenger front seat and put my coffee on the dashboard. Ciara sits behind in the backseat and begins asking questions.

 

Jenny asks me what my role in all of this is. I’m not quite sure. I tell her I’ll write the ‘meat’ surrounding her answers. She laughs. The interview begins.

 

Transcript

C: Tell me about your business, Provender and Family.

JL: I have worked in hospitality since I was 16 and I just fell in love with the industry. I managed restaurants, I opened restaurants for people, I got to 2013 and I felt I needed a change. I wanted to settle down, I wanted to have a family, and I can’t do that working nights. I left my last restaurant job in 2013/2014. I bought a coffee cart, went to Enterprise social welfare (Back To Work Enterprise Allowance), I started my own business, and yeah, built it from scratch!

 

C: It must have been a scary time to open a business, because of the recession.

I figured out that the Back To Work Enterprise will pay for the cart so I wouldn’t actually have outlayed too much of a risk, then as the business grew I did put a lot of my own money into it and invested into it and all that. It was more exciting than scary. I was young! 

 

C: What challenges have you faced as a female business owner?

You don’t get to play with the boys. The Barista Bros don’t let you play. I had to teach myself everything. You have to find your own support network. I’ve encountered a lot of dismissiveness from landlords and real estate agents. When you are nobody, and you’re just a little girl and you’re in your twenties, it’s quite hard to be taken seriously. 

 

We had a coffee cart, we had a market stall that grew into two market stalls, which grew into a pop up shop, which popped up for three years and didn’t pop down. That was in the Vintage Factory in Smithfield. I was constantly looking for a bricks and mortar shop and we were in between places, looking anywhere. When this place (Parkgate Street) came up, and I saw the footfall, I thought it was great. It was tiny, we put in a whole basement, which was a big investment. That was scary because it involved loans from the bank. We’re nearly there now, in terms of paying off the bank loan. It’s great. We’ve been in Parkgate Street for five years now. 

 

C: Have those five years affected you personally?

Well, we did trade through a pandemic, we were the last man standing on the street… that was super weird. We’ve retained our team through the pandemic which I think was no mean feat. It’s not like anyones in it for the money or the great pay. You’re either a ‘lifer’ and you do it because you love it or you do it as a summer job. 

 

C: The food in the cafe like the shawarma, veggie wraps, or sandwiches seem inspired, where does that come from?

 

JL: It’s because we give a shit. We like food. I’m basically greedy. I’m a professional glutton. A lot of it comes out of necessity. There’s things that people want. It’s stuff I want to eat. You want something healthy in the middle of the day, you don’t want a big greasy McDonalds. You want something that’s been made with a bit of love and attention.

 

C: How does the challenging atmosphere of the Dublin cafe scene affect you?

JL: It’s hard to not let it get inside your head, the slew of closures. I work with a woman called Tracie Daly, a food business coach. She’s terrifying. She posted on Instagram the other day saying “Don’t let it get to you, just knuckle down, look after your own business, and you’ll get through it. If you’re deciding to see this through, ride this out, shit’s always hard. It’s good advice for anything… just knuckle down and don’t let it get to you. We’re still turning a profit, definitely not what it should be, but we’re still viable. There’s no point thinking ‘why am I doing this?’ because I love it! And I don’t have a choice.

 

C: Do you have an end goal for the cafe?

JL: I’d like to recoup all the money that we’ve invested. It takes a lot of energy, I can’t do shifts anymore because I have arthritis. It still takes a lot of mental energy to be there. It’s lonely at the top!” Jenny laughs. “I’ve tried to get people to partner with me like my husband, he’s wonderful but I don’t let him make the decisions. It just takes a lot of commitment and energy.

 

C: What cafes do you love or feel inspired by? 

JL: One of my friends’ cafés, Mayfield in Terenure, is one of my favourite cafes. It’s these huge set of rooms that were really ugly and he’s put them together through glitter and antiques and stuff they found. They’ve made it out of nothing and it’s gorgeous. It’s definitely not a hipster place, those places kind of piss me off. They don’t do decaf, they sneer at you when you want it extra hot because you are taking it in the car and won’t be able to drink it for twenty minutes, they’re not customer focused. The reason we do two sizes of coffee is because that’s what people want, that’s what our customers want. The reason we do a chocolatey Brazilian blend is not because I don’t know about all the single origins, it’s because that’s what people want. This is an older demographic. I give them what they want, with good vibes too.

 

C: What is the demographic of the café? 

JL: We’re probably a bit expensive for the students… at the same time, we’re cheaper than Costa and Starbucks. What we don’t have is that you can sit there for an hour with your five euro Frappuccino. We don’t have the space-rental-thing going for us. Our demographic is the criminal courts of justice so we have all the lawyers and all the crims. Parkgate Street is a strange place. You get people who have just been released from prison, literally just off the bus outside the door, then you get the lawyers, then you get the people who use the homeless accommodation services, you have office workers and the neighbourhood at the weekend.

 

C: What was the thought behind implementing the suspended coffee system?

JL: That started in Smithfield, when I would have to move people from the doorway. This time of year I would especially give people cups of tea. I thought, I can’t keep doing this. I don’t know where I came across it first but it was an Irish guy who had seen it in naples. It seemed like a really easy thing to do. We made a name for ourselves in Smithfield for ‘paying it forward’. We were friends with the people who came in for a suspended coffee. In Parkgate Street we’ve had two customers die who used to come in all the time. You can’t live and work in this part of the city or any of the inner city and ignore the homeless problem. The suspended coffee is not necessarily just for homeless people, we had people who were living in the homeless accommodation and would just have had mental health difficulties or just needed a connection, and that’s why I did it. I think it’s important. I also think its important for the lawyers to fucking see it! I’m sure they have their own ways of contributing but if someone comes in looking for a hot chocolate and there’s a queue of lawyers who are about to drop thirty euro, they can afford to add a suspended coffee. We have a bit of ‘street justice’. There are people who mess with the system, and I take a hard line on it. There’s places where you can go for a cup of tea. I don’t think we should be giving out teas and coffees to anyone who asks. At the end of the day it’s still a business and you get people who are trying to take advantage, that’s just the way people are.

 

C: What advice would you give to women business owners?

JL: Join a support group of women and if you can’t find one create one. It’s very lonely being a female entrepreneur.” She laughs. “There’s loads of us out there. I was invited to join a WhatsApp group and we ask stuff like “what are you going to do about the wage increase?” or “what are you going to do about the aluminium can deposit return scheme?” 

We share information because it’s powerful and because no one else gives it to you. If you don’t have it you need to make it.

 

C: Where do you see yourself in ten years?

JL: Writing hopefully. I don’t think I should pigeonhole myself. I’m interested in gardening, in growing, in social and environmental justice, in women, in planning. I used to think being master of all trades was a bad thing but now I think there is a world for generalists, and we should ruin the world for specialists. Keep it fucking broad.

 

WORDS: Agne Kniuraite & Ciara Munnelly