By John Mckenna
Cara Magazine
March 2003
As you head east to the big gridlock from Galway, cold bag stuffed-to-bursting with Confit and Quince and Cooleeney Camembert, turn off the dreary Nenagh bypass and pull up alongside Country Choice, on Kenyon Street. That’s right: it isn’t much to look at, is it? A little shop like all other little shops that populate the pleasant centre of this prosperous country town.
But seeing is believing, and when you push open the door you will find your self in the food lover’s equivalent of Aladdin’s Cave. So many delicious marvels, packed everywhere, and then that nose tweaking aroma wafting through from the kitchens at the back.
That’s on account of Sophie, the Country Choice chef, rustling up the daily specials that see a patient queue dominate this tiny room for hours every day: delicious quiches, sparky salads, casseroles and ragouts and good country stews. Real cooking, real food. And they call this a coffee bar?
Well, indeed they do, but over the last 20 years, owners Peter and Mary Ward have simply redefined the concept of a coffee bar, just as Grangecon redefines the idea of the café and Sheridan’s redefines the idea of a shop. These guys simply shifted the paradigm, and they have done it I suspect, thanks to a trust in serendipity.
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