If we're being honest
Ireland’s Tabernacles of Treats signal the New Retail.
Streamstown Honesty Hut, Staplestown, Co Kildare
“Staplestown Honesty Hut. Est. 2024. Homemade breads, Cakes & Tarts, Jams & Relishes, Desserts. Contact Pamela for orders.”
Out in W91, in the wilds of County Kildare midway between the M7 and the M4, Pamela Lane has created the Harvey Nichols of roadside honesty huts.
A garland of flowers bedecks the door of the Staplestown Honesty Hut, dangling over the OPEN sign, and through the panes of glass you can see Pamela’s loaves and soda breads, the oreo cookies and rolo brownies. An adjacent little cupboard, also ringed with colourful flowers, is home to the jams and marmalades and chutneys.
It is the funkiest Tabernacle of good things, a tiny Tardis of tasty treats. Pamela got the Hut open in late 2024, having brought her sourdough game to satisfaction, and this is treasureable baking and cake making, with all the warmth of precisely executed domestic baking enshrined in every bite.
We got a sourdough cob, oreo cookies, rolo brownies, apple crumbles. What is incredible is the sheer amount of delectable goodies that Pamela creates: turn up on Friday and Saturday and you might find caramel and vanilla slices; kinder bueno; school cake sprinkles; biscoff square; curnie soda bread; cinnamon buns; cheddar and sun-dried tomato bread; vanilla cupcakes. This tiny space is Cockaigne, the Land of Plenty.
Olivier’s Bread Dispensary, North Park, Finglas, Dublin 11
You know how it is when you make a list to send someone out to get a message.
“Get two 4m x 5m heavy duty tarps at Screwfix. And get a plain brioche and a maxi-sourdough, sliced, at Olivier’s Bread Dispensary.”
As you can see from the photo above, our happy shopper managed to bag both the sourdough and the Screwfix tarps, at North Park, in Finglas, all in the space of a couple of minutes.
Dispensaries are where you get medications, and that’s pretty much what Olivier Quenet is doing with his Bread Dispensaries, of which there are now three: at North Park, at the Texaco service station at Clonee, and in the car park beside the ticket machine at Charlestown Shopping Centre.
The system could not be more fun, and we strongly recommend bringing a young child when you go to get the bread, because kids just think the automated bread dispensaries are the bee’s knees.
Here’s the action: the bread is stored in a series of multiple boxes in the dispensary, which are locked. From the control panel, you select the bread or pastries you want: sliced sourdough; Guinness bread; lemon twist brioche; chocolate brioche, and a whole lot more which is originated in the bakery just behind the dispensary.
Choice made, you pay with your card, and the door pops open, allowing you to retrieve your bread. Child-like happiness ensues, smiles all ‘round, happy days. Enjoy your meds.
The Coop, Ballydehob, West Cork
Here is the West Cork Way of creating a food business.
Site your food operation on a single track road – preferably a very narrow, very grassy boreen – at the end of a lane that crawls up a mountain, and at the farthermost end of the peninsula of your choice. That will do nicely.
That’s what Clare Deegan and her husband, Rob, did when they moved to an old farmhouse in West Cork and set up The Coop, a pretty horsebox set by the side of the rood on a grassy boreen set back from the N71. Where is it? Well, kind of nowhere, but also not far from everywhere.
Clare began by selling eggs and her own fresh veg, but once Rob had gotten his sourdough action sorted to his satisfaction, a whole slew of baked goods joined the offering: cinnabons; nifty custardos; fruit scones; chocolate fudge cookies; gra sourdough; focaccia; brown bread; fine shortbread biscuits.
They swap the offering on alternate days, with breads on Tuesday followed by sweet things on Wednesday and so on. You can pay by cash, or by Revolut.
The Coop is pure darling. It’s pure West Cork.
Lapland Farm Milk Hut, Douglas, Cork
Some people will tell you that romance is dead. Those people don’t know what they are talking about.
The Proof: one young lady was brought on a surprise Day Date by her paramour. Such excitement! And where did Romeo bring his Juliet, as she filmed the whole episode for Insta? Why to Lapland Farm Milk Hut, of course, up there on the Maryborough Hill, near to Carrigaline, out on the fringe of Cork city. See ! Love is not dead, and neither is it homogenised, like Heather and Melvin Smith’s farm milk, sold via a nifty pair of dispensers at the farm milk hut. Heather and Melvin milk a herd of 140 fresians, and the place was buzzing whilst we were there getting the fresh farm milk, with loads of people choosing to fill up with the flavoured milks which are available – our Day Date couple went for strawberry for her, and chocolate for him, and here’s betting they will be back on her birthday for a bottle of Birthday Cake milk. True love!
Rosewood Coastal Forest Honey, Ballyrisode, West Cork
“Open Me” says the Honey-Cabinet in pure Alice Adventures in Wonderland style. The little hut is at the entrance to Rosewood Self-Catering Accommodation and Culinary Dining from Elena and Hannes Hermann.
The honey is collected from their hives, and their bees in turn collect pollen from the nearby forests. This is coastal forest honey, which is something of a premium product, slightly darker in colour then most honeys, and full of minerals and nutrients. It sells out fast (they expected to sell out at the end of April, but will open again after the summer harvest). The little hut also sells honey lanyards, keyrings and, get this, bee patterned socks. This Cabinet of Curiousities is past the road to the beach at Ballyrisode in West Cork.
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