Neil Mulhern on opening a second cafe – Joli, Stoneybatter

Joli has been in the pipeline for the last two years. Although we didn’t know exactly where it would be or how it would look, a cafe by day and wine bar by night has always been the dream. Both of us are extremely proud to be a part of the bustling Stoneybatter community, and hope to make a real impact in the area over the coming years.

The name Joli comes from an amalgamation of our dad’s names, John and Liam. John and Liam passed away after battling cancer in 2020 and 1998 respectively, and Joli is a dedication to both men, who are greatly missed today and forever. It has presented different challenges now that we have a physical premises compared to a trailer, but we are lucky to be blessed with a great team.

We are excited to get this one absolutely right, and create exciting menu both in the day and night operations. One of the biggest challenges so far has been splitting our time between the two operations (technically 3 when you factor in the night time). We would both love to be in both locations, and it hurts whenever someone drops a text and says “was in Joli/Bua, missed you but will catch you again!”, mainly because that’s where we get a buzz, welcoming people into our two locations. We’re delighted with how Joli has started, we owe a lot to our staff in Bua, without a rock solid team we wouldn’t be able to divide our attention like we have.

Opening Joli, felt like starting from scratch again, similar to how early days of launching Esoc and A&F felt, you feel like you’re constantly solving little problems, without making actual progress, you feel like you’re spinning plates. We’re probably still a little bit in that stage at the moment, but are starting to get a feel for how we want to move forward. It’s an challenging, but overall exciting time, we can’t wait to see what the future will bring in Stoneybatter.