“A kind of homely place, like a community”: Dublin 8’s Cathedral Café

It has been raining on and off all morning. Inside the doors of the Cathedral Café on Dean Street in Dublin 8, it is unusually quiet. 

Teresa Varela bustles about in the back room, reorganising stock. “We need more milk, Natalie!” she calls out. 

Natalie McDonnell is sitting at a table, enjoying a brief moment of peace.

A tall man comes in with a whippet. Varela rushes out front to pet the dog.

A woman comes in with her young daughter. Varela greets them warmly. She hugs the daughter, chats with the mother.  

A few minutes later, a grey-haired man bursts in. Varela excitedly talks with him in Spanish.

Within 20 minutes, the small café is full of convivial life. 

The Cathedral Café opened on 8 February 2011, in this space not far from St Patrick’s Cathedral. 

Varela is the face of the café these days. But it was Trevor Lee who first opened it, says Teresa.

He was living across the road on Dean Street at the time, he says. Lee – who has worked as a part-time model, fashion choreographer, catwalk trainer and charity event manager – had no experience running a business, he says. 

He didn’t even drink coffee. But when he saw a “To Let” sign go up at the hairdresser’s over the road from his flat, the thought struck him that there weren’t any cafés around, he says. 

He took his opportunity and bought the place.

He knew the vibe that he wanted from the start, he says. “A kind of homely place, like a community.” 

“Like being in somebody’s house”

When it first opened, the Cathedral Café was wallpapered with 19th-century-style Parisian patterns. 

It had wooden chairs and tables and ornaments all around. 

“It was like being in somebody’s house” says Lee.

Varela and Lee had been friends for years before the café opened.

Varela was involved from the start, says Lee. And about 18 months after it opened, she took over fully. 

“Naturally, like a baby, she just took over the business and started to cradle it,” says Lee.

Varela is hands on, he says. “I’m the ideas person.”

Varela agrees. "Trevor has great ideas.” 

Religious icons

Before opening the cafe, Lee had begun to collect statues of the Virgin Mary and other religious icons, says Varela. He then filled the café with them.

She had to get rid of them, she says, as dust just clung to them. Not all of Lee’s ideas line up with her way of doing things, she says.

But one statue of the Virgin Mary stayed. It stands by the front door. 

Religion is important to Lee, he says.

He recalls an incident from his teenage years which had a big impact on him.  

“I woke up to this speck of light at the end of my bed … this light just got bigger and bigger and something came hovering out and said something to me,” he says.

He doesn’t know what was said, he says. But he has been certain since that moment that something exists beyond the natural world, says Lee. 

He used to be more openly religious, he says. He mused on joining a monastery. These days, he wears his spirituality a little more lightly. 

He goes to mass. But as the bright neon “Karma” sign in the café shows, his beliefs go beyond a single religion. 

Lee draws a line between the shrinking of faith-based meeting spaces and the ethos of the café as a community hub. 

The percentage of those living in the area identifying as Catholic shrank from 52 percent to 38 percent, between the 2016 and 2022 censuses. 

Those identifying with other religions rose slightly from 14 percent to 14.5 percent, while those with no religion rose from 22 percent to 28 percent – and the remainder didn’t say.

Still, people need these kinds of meeting places, Lee says, especially “nowadays with a lot of churches closing down and people losing faith”. 

Plans for the future

Varela is honest, to the point, in her chat with customers – and always willing to talk. 

Talking to people all the time can be exhausting though, she says. “I never get a minute’s peace.”

She loves running the place, she says. But she wouldn’t mind early retirement too, she says.

Some customers these days can be ruder than in the past, she says. More difficult to serve, as they are often more focused on their phones than what’s in front of them, she says. 

They just order and go, says Lee. “They don’t interact.” It’s not what Cathedral Café is about, he says. 

The café has changed over the years. The aesthetic is more minimalist. They pulled out a partition wall to reveal brickwork and wooden beams.

Regulars remain, though. 

Varela’s breakfast keeps Pat McCauley coming back, he says. “It's the best food in the Liberties,” says McCauley. He waves around his bacon sandwich, for the room to admire.

McCauley, says Lee, has been there from the start. “I suppose he’s a bit like the father of the café.”

The café serves classic fry-ups, sandwiches, rolls, soups, cakes and pastries. It also sometimes hosts tapas nights on Fridays.

“The tapas night is a bit of a party,” says Varela, and an opportunity for locals to connect with one another and have fun. 

Lee has more plans, he says. To install a hatch door and open a creperie in the evenings, he says. Maybe, he’ll get that going in the new year, says Lee.