The proof is in Pudding Row

When Dervla James left a successful business in Dublin to move home to Easkey, Co Sligo, and open Pudding Row in 2015, all she wanted was “a sleepy little cafe in this sleepy village”.

Just hours into her first day, however, she realised just what she had let herself in for.

“Our first day was brilliant, but I went home and I cried my eyes out because I realised how busy it could be,” she admits.

“And the next day we were so busy. And each day is busier and busier.”

Not that she is complaining, mind. It’s just that striking that elusive work-life balance is something that is important to the mother-of-two and all part of her path to Pudding Row, which this year was named best cafe in Ireland at the Irish Restaurant Awards. Though Dervla missed out on the ceremony itself after her youngest daughter came down with chickenpox. Family comes first.

She is just finishing a batch of her vegan caramel, peanut and chocolate squares – developed during her last maternity leave – when Irish Country Living climbs the stairs that lead to the light and bright cafe in the village centre.

Specials of the day include a brunch tart made with free-range eggs, black pudding, organic parsley, pesto, caramelised red onion, Cooleeney cheese and toasted walnuts or roast courgette, fennel and mint soup. If it’s something sweet you are after though, there’s flourless lemon, almond and ricotta cake, dark chocolate and Achill sea salt caramel squares or the best-selling Victoria sponge to lead you into temptation.

As we salivate, Dervla explains that the table she bakes at from 5.30am every morning overlooks the Easkey coast so that she can watch the sun rise over the sea. Raised right beside the shore, it’s like that wild Atlantic water runs in her veins.

“I grew up looking at the sea, listening to the sea, swimming in the sea,” she smiles. “Everything for me centred around the sea.”

From Pepper Pot to Pudding Row

Baking, as it transpires, was a later discovery. While she loved TV programmes growing up, like Darina Allen’s Simply Delicious, she admits that she only applied for a job in a local restaurant as a teenager because her friends were working there as waitresses, and she reluctantly took a role in the kitchen.

“I was like: ‘Oh God, I don’t know if I could do that,’” she recalls, but found she had a flair for food and applied to study professional cookery in Dublin after her Leaving Cert.

A few months in, however, she realised it just “wasn’t for me”.

“I think maybe I was a small town girl and moving to the city was a bit too much, too soon,” she reflects.

Taking time out to decide her next move, Dervla went to Galway, where she soon got a job working at a local cafe, which she loved. When she heard that DIT was introducing a degree in baking and pastry arts, however, she “rang and rang and rang” until she was finally offered a place on the course.

This time, it was the perfect fit and she flourished, working part-time in the award-winning Cake Cafe on the side, where she met Ballymaloe graduate Marian Kilcoyne. The pair became friends and soon after, business partners, when they opened their own café, The Pepper Pot, in 2010 in Dublin’s Powerscourt centre, with just €6,000 between them and before Dervla had even graduated.

“We were young and single and fearless,” she smiles, “so we just went for it.”

Their risk paid off, with The Pepper Pot winning a loyal following for its hearty soups, sandwiches, cakes and bakes – even getting an order from Lady Gaga while on tour in Ireland. During that time, Dervla also met her future husband, Johny, and welcomed her first daughter, Edith, now six.

She soon found, however, that running a café in the city centre – with the long hours and commute – was not conducive to the work-life balance she so craved.

“I was definitely thinking: ‘Is this really the kind of lifestyle I want for my family, for my child, for myself? Did I personally want to do it? Did I want to spend all my time at work and then whatever time was left over was with Edith and Johny?’” she recalls.

But the decision to walk away from a successful partnership and business did not come easy.

“I felt really torn,” admits Dervla, though fortunately she had Marian’s full support, whatever choice she made.

Bringing it all back home

With hopes of extending their family, Dervla and Johny decided to relocate to Easkey, making the move in 2015. The plan was that Johny would work with Dervla’s dad, while she would take some time out at home and maybe look at running a market stall down the line.

“And then this unit came up,” she gestures, explaining how, just weeks after returning, they were approached to take over the cafe where Dervla had worked as a teenager, which was in a building owned by the local community council.

Figuring that it must be fate, Dervla and Johny made the decision to invest the €40,000 they had saved for a deposit for a house into refurbishing the premises.

“We literally pumped everything into it,” says Dervla of Pudding Row, though she admits that some people were sceptical when they told them of their plan to open a cafe in her hometown, which had suffered during the recession.

“They said it in quite a negative way: ‘You’ll never be as busy as you were in Pepper Pot.’ And we’ve kind of proven that wrong,’” she says.

“You can be anywhere as long as you’re good and providing a good service and that’s what we do here: providing what people want.”

Indeed, Pudding Row appears to have revitalised the small seaside village, located halfway between Ballina and Sligo, as a “destination cafe” for visitors, while also creating a hub for local people.

“I think what we’ve done here is brought maybe a focal point for the community that isn’t a pub,” says Dervla, who attributes the success of the cafe to doing simple things “really well”.

“Using what you have around you, you can do anything,” she concludes.

Work-life balance

However, while growing their business, the couple have also remained very conscious of the reason why they left Dublin in the first place. And so, when Dervla was expecting their daughter Matilda a year and a half ago, they made the decision to stay closed over the winter, as at that stage they were still not in the position to pay another full-time staff member in the off-season.

“Some people thought we were nuts closing,” she admits, “but for this business to sustain itself, I was a woman who wanted to have another baby and I made that choice and that was my choice. To close was my choice and to reopen was my choice and I’m very happy, but I’m very grateful for people and for the community and wider community as well who didn’t take it the wrong way. They came back.”

And while she acknowledges that returning to a demanding business with a young baby was “really hard”, it also pushed her to make changes in order to achieve that work-life balance she had originally moved home for.

“I was coming back with a baby not even four months old and I was breastfeeding and up all night and all the nightmare-ish stuff that comes with parenting anyway,” she explains, “but from being pushed into that position where it was like, ‘I need help!’, it helped me.”

This included investing in another full-time staff member – even if the hours were not always there off-season – in order to avoid burnout; an issue that Dervla feels is a threat to many people working in the food industry.

“It’s an incredibly hard industry and it’s really hard when you’re a woman and you’re a mother,” acknowledges Dervla, who believes that many women put themselves under ferocious pressure to be “superwoman” under the expectation that they should “do it all”.

“It’s a total myth and it’s hurting people all around the world every day,” she says, adding that women in business need to strive for “self-care” as much as any other goal.

“Because you’re really important,” she adds.

And with that philosophy to the fore, Pudding Row seems to be thriving, with 15 staff at the height of the season and open all year round, though with reduced hours in winter and extra activities like baking classes and Christmas markets to counteract the decreased footfall.

Looking forward, Dervla would love to expand by adding a guest house and perhaps a shop, and she sees her rural location as an advantage rather than an obstacle.

“I feel limitless,” she smiles of the opportunities she sees on her doorstep.

And who would doubt her? After all, the proof is in Pudding Row.

For further information, visit www.puddingrow.ie or follow on Instagram and Facebook.

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