Riding the crest of a wave at Shells Cafe in Strandhill

When it comes to drawing up the work rota at Shells Cafe in Strandhill, there is one factor that Myles and Jane Lamberth nearly always take into account.

“The surf looks good on Tuesday and Thursday,” smiles Myles. “I’m not working those days!

“It’s a great lifestyle here. We are living the dream, I suppose.”

But, just to clarify, it’s a dream that began in the darkest days of the recession in 2010 with just €5,000 in their back pocket and a 10-day turnaround after relocating lock, stock – and surfboards – from Cornwall to Co Sligo.

“Everyone thought we were mad and the amount of people who said: ‘This will never work, wait ’till you see the winter,’” recalls Jane.

“I just think we were too passionate to even hear it.

“We never put limits on our dreams and we always thought you can be a destination café and they do exist – they work everywhere else in the world.

“There’s no reason people won’t come to Sligo to come to our café if we make it good enough.”

GOING WEST

It’s Friday, just after the lunch time rush, but Shells is still humming with a sea-salted symphony of chat and clinking coffee cups as we opt for today’s special – prosecco-battered pollock served with thick potato wedges and a delicate green salad, adorned with edible flowers.

Yes, it’s fish and chips – but not as you know it.

And it seems it’s this combination of food, coffee and community that has put Shells on the map, thanks to Jane and Myles’ vision to create a business that suited their lifestyle and love of surfing and the great outdoors.

Jane grew up in Dublin and studied business in DCU before branching into corporate banking (“which I hated!”) and then marketing (“that I loved”), but decided to ditch the day job to move to Cornwall to work – and surf.

“I never really thrived in an office environment and climbing the ladder and office politics,” she explains.

“I just couldn’t sit still. I kind of knew I was giving up a good thing – the security and a great job – but it didn’t really matter.”

It was while working at the famous Headland Hotel in Newquay that Jane crossed paths with Myles.

(Their “accidental first date” happened when she was looking for a volunteer to go to a Wheatus concert with her. The rest is history.)

The son of an engineer, Myles had lived in Iran, France, Switzerland and England as a child, but spent his formative years in Capetown, South Africa, where he started his degree in fine arts, before a part-time job as a river rafting guide swept him towards a career in tourism and hospitality.

He honed his culinary skills cooking for guests on safari in the summer and in the ski chalets of France and the United States in the winter. After meeting Jane, the couple worked their way around the world together before deciding to take the plunge and open their own business in 2010, exploring options from a lodge in the Alps to a café in Cornwall.

They also toured the west coast of Ireland, from Cork to Sligo, seeking opportunities and were familiar with Shells in Strandhill but never believed they would have the opportunity to run it until – by stroke of fortune – Jane came across an online ad by the then owner who was looking for a new manager.

They had another proposal, however.

“We flew over from Cornwall to meet the manager here and we said: ‘Don’t pay us, we’ll pay you. Give us a five-year lease and we’ll take it from there,’” explains Myles.

“And we never looked back,” adds Jane.

CREATING SHELLS

And with just €5,000 in savings behind them – and a 10-day turnaround to open Shells in time for Easter – they boarded the ferry with their lives packed in the back of their car.

“We had to try to convince all the suppliers to give us credit and printed the menu on A4 pieces of paper,” recalls Myles.

“I remember on the first day, I made six loaves of bread from scratch and now we’re making 40 loaves of bread every day.”

“And even though we didn’t have a lot of money, we just filled the place with fresh flowers,” adds Jane. “I wanted to give people a taste of what we were trying to do.

“We re-covered the tables, painted the chairs in beautiful sea colours – all the sea greens and turquoises and really just bring the surf sealife into the café – and hired really friendly staff who were welcoming.”

The couple describe their brunch and lunch offering as “simple food, done well”.

“If we do a BLT, we’re going to make sure it’s the best BLT,” says Myles of their menu, though daily specials – be they buttermilk raspberry and white chocolate pancakes, confit of duck supreme with parmesan polenta, creamy spinach and roasted beetroot, or their famous pork belly burger – keep both the kitchen and customers on their toes.

Key suppliers include Kilbeggan porridge, McCabe’s coffee, Burren Smokehouse salmon, and Richard Wood-Martin, who supplies all their eggs fresh from the farm.

“Literally, if he’s late, it’s because they just haven’t laid yet,” smiles Jane.

Equally important, however, is creating a sense of community so that everybody feels welcome at Shells.

“Even the way we price our menu. We try to price it that if you have a few affordable items on there for students or if you’re unemployed, but you still want to come out for a treat, there’s still a welcome and there’s still an option,” says Jane.

RIDING THE WAVE

Clearly it’s been a recipe for success. While Jane and Myles originally anticipated that Shells would be a seasonal business, they are now open year round, seven days a week.

“We started off with five or six of us and now we employ, in season, probably over 30 people,” says Myles, who describes how they run events such as supper clubs during the quieter months.

As well as the 40-seater restaurant, they have expanded the business to include a shop filled with unique gifts and artisan produce and a takeaway coffee stand, while they have also published two books, The Surf Café Cookbook and Surf Café Living, with a third on the way with Orca Publications.

However, their own family has also grown, with the arrival of baby Arlo, which has only reinforced their desire to make Shells work with their lifestyle, rather than the other way around.

“I think sometimes people are afraid to say that out loud,” says Jane of striking the work-life balance.

“Sometimes people feel they need to be a martyr to their business, but I kind of feel when you’re in an industry that’s very much ‘giving’– you’re giving a lot of service and food – you have to rejuvenate yourself as well in order to keep that all going.”

And if that means tweaking the rota to suit the surf forecast, well, maybe that’s why Shells is still on the crest of a wave seven years on…CL

Visit www.shellscafé.com or call 071-912-2938.

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