A Storm in a Coffee Cup?

There’s something that’s seemingly popped up everywhere since the lockdown started here in Ireland. And no, I’m not referring to the proliferation of covidiots, conspiracy theorists and other dipshits that seem to spring up from under every rock. I’m talking about coffee trucks. Whether it’s in a converted trailer, at the back of a vintage truck, or in some other mobile contraption, these things have seemingly spread all over Corks parks over the last year or so. Well, what few parks there are, but that’s a whole other debate. And as you would expect, this has caused quite a bit of criticism, but not for the reasons one might expect.

Yep, trailers like this one are what all the fuss is about.

You see, much of the criticism isn’t aimed at the fact that many of these coffee trucks don’t provide any bins or any places to sit, or that they seem to be almost completely unregulated, all of which are completely valid points that should be addressed. No, the main point of criticism I’ve heard is that they’re… selling coffee. Yep, you heard that right, and no, that isn’t my bloody head cold talking! Apparently, selling coffee is just a gimmick, and a fad, and these coffee trucks will destroy the city as a consequence. Besides, they’re killing the brick-and-mortar cafes in the city centre as well… that are apparently selling a fad. But also, apparently not? If I weren’t already feeling woozy, trying to follow this logic would certainly do the trick. But since I’m a card-carrying coffeeholic, I can’t let this thing stand unchallenged. 

Places such as the Regional Park can't really be served by anything else than a coffee or food truck. You'd never get planning permission for a fixed café in there.

You see, while the density of these coffee trucks is new, they themselves have been around for a long time. I know several coffee trucks that have been around for years at this point and started long before the pandemic ever kicked off. One of them has been the source of my post-drone-flight coffees ever since I moved into my current flat, simply because they’re the only option to grab a coffee and sit down in the Regional Park here. And let’s be frank here, for many of those locations, a coffee truck or a food truck are often the only options to get any type of food or drink on site, either because the site isn’t suitable for building due to environmental reasons or because any construction at that site would give historian or archaeologists an aneurysm. Now whether it is always the best decision to have such mobile cafes rock up to these locations is a different discussion, but there is a very valid logistical reason for these things.

Having a place to get your post-flight coffee is a real bonus for the Regional Park though.

As for the number of trucks, this isn’t really surprising either. It’s a reflection of how the city centre has changed and will likely continue to change. Cafes and the accompanying coffee culture have made huge inroads on Leeside in recent years, definitely in the time that I’ve been here. When I arrived in Cork in 2012, there were maybe two to three decent cafes in the city centre, and one of them was a Costa Coffee, so I’ll leave it to you to decide whether that falls into the decent category or not. Fast forward to 2020 and we have at least twelve cafes in the city centre alone, not counting the four large coffee chain outlets. And you know what? They are all chock full. Well, before the pandemic anyway. Trying to find a free table to get some writing done for my “writing dates” was always a gamble before the lockdown, and I presume that this will be the case again once “normal” service resumes at the end of this manic period. It just goes to show that there is a huge demand for what a café provides.

You see, there’s more to coffee culture than just some pseudo-religious adoration of that black liquid. In fact, I’d go so far to say that all this “third wave coffee” stuff that has recently started to appear in large numbers, is nothing but a bunch of elitist bullcrap. If the preparation of your morning coffee takes longer than mixing up some illegal narcotics in an RV in the New Mexico desert, you’ve crossed the line from fascination and appreciation into obsession and fanaticism. Anyway, where were we? Ah yes, coffee culture. Believe it or not, this is something that I grew up with. I’m half Austrian, and cafes have been a part of Austrian life and culture since the days of the Habsburg Monarchy. It was already well established when Austria was still a respected naval power, that’s how far back it goes! And this coffee culture, while certainly centred around the drink and the cafes where you can get it, is much more of a social matter than simply a culinary one. It’s about having a place to sit down, meet up with friends or family, or maybe just to read a book or catch up on the day’s news. With the advent of laptops, they’ve also become places to study or work, and many of the posts on this very blog have been at least partially written in cafes from Vienna to Providence. It is this social aspect that is the main draw for cafes.

Even the "pride and joy" of Cork City is almost completely given over to cars, with no real place to sit down, except for a fast-food joint and an over-priced pub!

This is even more valid for Cork than it is for other places, particularly given the ongoing insanity in the rental market. Many people in entry level jobs, and even a surprising number of people in more advanced stages of their career, find themselves either stuck living with their parents, or having to share a flat, meaning there is often little space or privacy to meet friends or family, unless you’re one of the lucky ones who really get on exceptionally well with their flat mate. As such, having a café within easy reach to meet with said friends, or even to just get away, pop on a pair of headphones and work on that university assignment, is often a godsend. As such, cafes are very much places of refuge from the daily grind, something that I’ve used them as for a considerable time. Then, there’s the demographic factor that’s at play in Cork, and in most other large cities in Ireland as well. The prevalence of large IT companies that often employ many hundreds if not thousands of people has led to a massive influx of foreign nationals into the city on the Lee, myself included. As of the last census, 43% of the people living in the city centre were not born in Ireland. Many of these come from countries where coffee culture has been a staple of everyday life for decades as well. As such, popping into a café is simply natural for many of these foreign nationals, and businesses have naturally sprung up to cater for that market. 

This is the sad reality of "city life" in Cork. Chain stores, a bit of pavement and far too much space for cars. No place for people to meet or sit down outside!

It'll always remain a mystery to me why streets such as Oliver Plunkett Street weren't pedestrianised until 2021!

Seriously, with such a miserable streetscape, it shouldn't be any surprise that cafés are booming. There's literally nowhere else to go, except for a pub maybe.

Finally, there’s the issue of having a space to meet at all. Cork’s city centre is basically a stone and concrete wasteland, built exclusively around ensuring that Marty and Sinead have a large enough place to park their one-tonne child killing machine to do their shop before driving back out to Ballyassbackwards or Castletownnowhere. Any open ground that isn’t actively being used as either a road or a car park is paved over, and most business premises play host to stores of different sizes offering the same, ever-repeating brands at the same, ever-repeating prices, sometimes under the name of a major retail brand, sometimes masquerading as a “local” business. There are effectively no communal spaces in the city, no parks, no large squares, not even large civic places like libraries or museums. Just shops and pubs. And let’s face it. Not everyone wants to disappear into a pub at like 4PM just to meet someone. As such, the proliferation of cafés is simply a logical continuation of the desire to have a place to hang out and meet friends. This will not go away, in fact, it is likely that there will be a veritable explosion of new cafés once this series of lockdowns is finally over, especially since the long overdue pedestrianisation of parts of the city centre has finally started.

Places like Grand Parade, where you can actually sit down for a second, meet someone, or even have a coffee outside, are a real rarity in the city centre.

As such, both cafés and coffee trucks are here to stay. Granted, there are quite a few things that need to be sorted out, particularly with coffee trucks. There will need to be some delineation between regular spots for these trucks and brick & mortar cafés to prevent these trucks from being used to deliberately lure away customers from one or the other. There will need to be some kind of regulation to ensure that enough bins are provided for any rubbish that is produced by either the coffee trucks or their customers and yes, there will also need to be some discussion around providing a certain baseline of tables and chairs. However, these technical questions do not outweigh the underlying fact that coffee culture, with all its trappings, is here to stay. So Why not sit down and have a cup?