KEEPING IT Local

Before it was a pub, The Local in Dungarvan was an electrical shop. Helena Gough’s parents, Johnny and Lenore, bought the premises in the 1960s when it was a pub and converted it into an electrical retail outlet, which it remained until 1999. Each year, Helena’s father would spend £200 on renewing the premise’s liquor licence so if a customer happened to request a pint along with his new plug, Johnny would have to acquiesce. In 1999, Helena and her brother decided to give the pub business a go and in 2004, Helena and her husband Donnchadh of Danú fame bought 'The Local' outright. Trad sessions were and still are a big draw at The Local; along with being front of house, Donnchadh plays both the uileann pipes and the bodhrán and will often be found performing in the pub. Back in 2004, The Local’s lunch menu consisted of soup and sandwiches. In 2005, the addition of a commercial kitchen allowed the food offering to extend beyond soup and sandwiches, with the emphasis very much on ‘homemade’.

Before the pandemic, trade at The Local had started to decline. “Sunday nights used to be really busy but in the last few months before Covid, our customers slowly stopped coming in. Drink driving laws had a big impact on our trade. I think we could see that a change would be required at some stage,” said Helena. Those changes came about quicker than expected. With lockdowns in place, the couple very quickly established a successful takeaway offering. “We brought the menu online, introduced a click-and-collect service and were sold out every week. I couldn’t believe how busy we were. The food side was something we had never pushed; lockdown gave us an opportunity to revisit that and to look at the entire business offering.” In March 2020, last orders were called on normal pub life at The Local. “The popularity of our takeaway offering showed us we were doing something right so we decided to re-position our entire business offering from a pub focus to food. It was the right decision to make.” TV screens were taken out of the bar, the toilets got a makeover and the bar and dining layout was reconfigured. A new outdoor heated dining area has now become a focal point in the town square and is, says Helena, utilised all year round. The Local now features lunch and evening and weekend menus. Every dish is homemade and features an abundance of award-winning locally sourced ingredients. Seafood is a focal point, with a homemade Helvick Head Seafood Chowder on offer, accompanied by Helena’s own brown bread. “We make absolutely everything ourself – our pesto, our hummus, our hake goujons, our lasagne, which is a customer favourite. We’re extremely pernickety but from the start we said, we’re either doing it with flavour or we’re not doing it at all. We have four chefs but we need more, especially as we move into the summer months.”

Before Covid, trade at The Local was based around 80% drink and 20% food. “Now, it’s the other way round. We’re extremely busy so it was the right decision to make, but increasing costs are proving difficult to deal with. Chicken alone has gone up in price by 50%. When we made the decision to go fulltime into food, we changed all the equipment in the kitchen to induction and tried to make the premises as energy efficient as possible. Our energy costs in January and February were still €12,000, but that figure would have been higher if we hadn’t made those changes back in 2020. The way I see it, most businesses are in the same boat so you just have to get on with it.”

The Local’s locals still come into the pub for a pint at the bar. “We may have pissed off some of our local customers with the changes we’ve made and initially, we were worried that we would never get the drinkers back in the evening time, but I think it has all worked out. We’ve made changes that accommodate everyone. If you were to compare the business now to two years ago, the change is unbelievable. It’s a seven days a week job, but we wouldn’t have it any other way.”

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