How a 1904 Dublin boot store was brought back to life by a ‘trendy’ coffee shop

A 1904 boots and drapery store in Dublin has been revived by a “trendy” coffee shop that embraced its 120-year-old designs.

Coffee business Coffeeangel has been praised by a heritage charity for restoring the building on 1-2 Lower Mount Street to its former glory, complete with the original hand-engraved mahogany sign.

Graham Hickey of the Dublin Civic Trust called it “heartening” to see a business investing in a “heritage asset” in the city centre, arguing it “packs a punch” greater than contemporary branding.

“We’ve seen so many examples all over Dublin of where shop fronts or upper facades or other historic elements have been removed or disfigured, this is a refreshing example of a very trendy business embracing what’s already there and enhancing their brand by harnessing that heritage,” he said.

Karl Purdy, founder of Coffeeangel, is no stranger to either restoration or reinvention.

His family moved from Belfast to Calgary in Canada just before he turned six and he returned as a budding news photographer to cover the first IRA ceasefire in 1994.

When covering The Twelfth in 1995, he said he was grabbed by the UVF who “scared the life out of me enough for me to reassess my life’s direction”.

As he pivoted to introducing speciality coffee to the island of Ireland, he bought an old print shop on Pembroke Street as the first Coffeeangel shop, and merged an old antiques shop and dentists into their South Anne Street store.

He said he has driven by the building on Lower Mount Street regularly for years and had wondered about it.

He said when he saw a sign go up, they took on the lease from March 1, and what he expected to be three months of renovations stretched into six months.

“We didn’t think it would be as successful as some of our other locations, but it was kind of heart over head. It’s a little bit off the beaten track but still a beautiful part of Dublin,” he told the PA news agency.

(Brian Lawless/PA)

Only mosaic tiles at the entrance to the shop hinted at the preserved history the store held: built in 1837 as two small homes, it was turned into commercial units in 1854 before becoming the John O’Grady boot and drapery supply shop in 1904.

After the 1916 Easter Rising, the business claimed £30 worth of damages caused by gunfire from a battle at the end of Mount Street.

When Mr Purdy and his team got into the building, they realised it hadn’t been invested in for around 50-80 years.

Mr Purdy said he has experience of renovations by then and went in “expecting the worst”.

Karl Purdy said that the restoration was ‘absolutely’ worth it (Brian Lawless/PA)

“One of my real bugbears were the steel shutters. They were horrible and I could see this huge oversized sign which was really hiding the shutter box. And I said, we really just need to get these shutters down, at least add some light.

“We started taking down the shutters and there was another sign that was more in keeping with the frame of the shop front and it said ‘French breads, coffee, news and food’, it might have been from the ’60s or ’70s, and I was delighted.

“I thought, this is amazing, do we keep that? And two days later I went back and looked up at it and I just asked one of the builders, can you please climb up the scaffold and see if there’s anything behind that sign?

“And they peeled back the perspex ‘French breads’ sign and there was a hand-carved mahogany sign, absolutely immaculate condition. I think the fact that it had been covered for so many years had kind of protected it.

“Once I saw that, we were like ‘Oh my god, jackpot’, I had to kind of rethink our branding opportunities but it was a really, really lovely surprise.”

Though it had cost “so much more than what we budgeted for”, when asked if it was worth it, he said “oh my god, yes”.

Residents on Mount Street have been heartened by the restoration (Brian Lawless/PA)

“I wouldn’t change a thing, I may ask the joiner to really push the boat out and try to get the original detailing back onto the window frame, but at the same time, there’s no guidance, there’s no grants.”

He said that locals on Mount Street have been heartened by the restoration and he added that, if he was visiting Dublin, this type of shop front is what he would like to see.

“When you go travelling anywhere, whether it is Paris or Rome, you’re always going to the old city, you’re always looking for what was this place like originally.

“Dublin is so battered and bruised, I just think there’s probably a lot of beauty that’s hidden.

“We’re just kind of passing through this building, but I’m hoping that John O’Grady and the work he put in 120 years ago will be there long after we’re gone.”

Coffeeangel founder Karl Purdy called the decision to buy the boot shop as one of ‘heart over head’ (Brian Lawless/PA)

Mr Hickey said: “Good design is embracing, very often, good quality elements that are already existing and allowing in this case the shop front to shine, and also, to some degree, the interior of the shop.

“It gleams on the street, the high-quality fit out of the building contributes to the street.

“You don’t need prominent signage and there is a certain type of magnetism that we are all familiar with traditional shop fronts, and that beautiful script and the incised lettering and the numerals in mahogany fascia, there’s an instant attraction there, and packs a punch much greater than having a large plastic fascia with contemporary branding on it.”

He added: “At the end of the day there is a certain responsibility that comes with property ownership and property management, I think too often Dublin City Council gets hammered for what is actually the misdeeds of private owners and businesses.

“Businesses in Dublin seriously need to step up to the mark. It doesn’t always cost a lot of money to maintain a building and to engage good design and we are appalling in Dublin when it comes to basic property management and investment.

“We have extremely poor culture in Ireland when it comes to property management and custodianship. People do need to invest better in the manner that Karl has done.”