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Some call it the witching hour, but it’s midnight when the magic starts to happen at The Stuffed Olive in Bantry.
Because, while the rest of us are turning in – or over – in our beds, Grace O’Shea is turning on the ovens to start her eight-hour shift, filling tins and trays with brown soda, oat and quinoa breads, scones and savoury pies, before starting on the desserts of the day, be it the best-selling Malteser cheese cake, lemon and raspberry bavarois or Black Forest mousse gateau.
Come 4am and her mother, Trish Messom, is also tying her apron strings to whip up light-as-air croissants, pains au chocolate and decadent breakfast brioches with custard and berries, along with the salads and specials.
And by the time the first customer walks in the door, Trish’s other daughter Sarah O’Shea is behind the counter, brewing up Cork Coffee Roasters’ Americanos between managing the social media, paperwork and payroll that comes with having 15 staff on the books.
And by bringing their skills together, Trish, Grace, Sarah – and their dedicated team, who they are eager to credit – have created a bustling cafe that has received accolades from The McKenna Guide amongst others, and spawned two cookbooks to date.
Don't live in regret
While both Grace and Sarah are quick to namecheck their mother as an inspiration, Trish – in between monitoring a batch of sponge cakes – tells Irish Country Living just how much she owes her own parents, May and Willie McCarthy, who raised 14 children on a small dairy farm in Castletownshend.
“When I think of it now, it was like running a business without training,” says Trish of their influence; and their take on “work-life balance” before the term even existed. “They always went dancing twice a week.”
The eldest of the family, Trish left school at 16, completing a CERT course in waitressing in Galway, as well as training in Switzerland.
She continued to work after Sarah and Grace were born, but in 1994 she went back to college one day a week over three years to qualify as a chef and, after working for local hotels and restaurants, bit the bullet and opened The Stuffed Olive in 2006 with her friend, Margie Kelly.
“We were nervous, of course, we’d never done anything like this before,” Trish recalls, before adding: “You can only try. Don’t live your life in regret anyway.”
The Stuffed Olive soon built up a loyal following in Bantry and beyond, but when the building they were renting was taken over by NAMA, Trish and Margie realised by 2012 that they would have to start again.
By then, however, Margie had decided that she wanted to pursue other interests, but Grace and Sarah both came on board with the project and the expanded Stuffed Olive opened in its new location on Bridge St in 2013.
Mother-daughter team
Having inherited her mother’s passion for baking, Grace explains how she began working in kitchens from the age of 13, starting on wash-up before joining Trish in the original Stuffed Olive.
“Mom, she taught me everything really,” she says, crediting her mother’s “patience” as one of her greatest virtues as a mentor.
Sarah, meanwhile, did a secretarial course after school and had worked her way from England and the US to Australia and New Zealand when she got the call to see if she would be interested in coming home.
“I didn’t want to keep travelling forever and I wasn’t interested in living in New Zealand forever, so it was kind of the perfect opportunity,” explains Sarah, who studied German baking on her way home, and recently completed a food science and technology course at UCC.
As well as the sweet treats mentioned earlier, The Stuffed Olive is also renowned for its satisfying salads – think Asian noodle salads with chilli, chicken, ginger, garlic and peanuts or Cajun salmon with bulgur wheat – and its ever-changing lunch specials, many with a Middle Eastern or Mediterranean twist, as well as takeaway meals and home catering options.
“For me, the challenge is there’s younger chefs out there, different styles of food, you can’t just do what you did last week, you have to keep changing and adapting,”
Trish says staying on top of your game is especially relevant when catering for growing markets, such as those following a vegan diet.
“They don’t want a latte, they want an oat milk latte, and we’re here to provide a service,” she says simply.
And as for working as part of a mother-daughter(s) team, their advice is simple: be honest with each other, don’t let things linger, don’t sweat the small stuff, and…
“Have fun,” smiles Grace. “We all have fun, every day.” CL
The Stuffed Olive, 2a Bridge Street, Bantry. Call 027-55883 or follow on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter
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