{"id":302191,"date":"2026-02-17T08:08:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-17T08:08:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/302191\/"},"modified":"2026-02-17T08:08:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-17T08:08:09","slug":"popular-dublin-lunch-spot-to-close-after-25-years-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/302191\/","title":{"rendered":"Popular Dublin lunch spot to close after 25 years \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

It was Bloomsday<\/a> in 2000 when best friends Fiona Fairbrother and Niamh Healion set up a hole-in-the-wall lunch spot, Soup Dragon on Capel Street<\/a> in Dublin<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt was essentially the hottest day of the year and we opened a soup restaurant. People thought we were mad,\u201d says Healion. \u201cBut we were determined.\u201d <\/p>\n

More than 25 years later, the popular Dublin cafe is due to close, with a new landlady taking over the lease. It is not clear what the plan is for the premises.<\/p>\n

The former teachers-turned-waitresses-turned-business owners first met in the late 1990s working as servers in Dublin at the newly opened Elephant and Castle restaurant in Temple Bar (an international outpost of the original restaurant founded by George Schwartz in Greenwich Village in New York). <\/p>\n

\"FionaFiona Fairbrother and Niamh Healion opened Soup Dragon in 2000 <\/p>\n

\u201cThe buzz back in the day when Liz Mee ran the place was amazing\u201d said Healion. \u201cObserving the system and how she ran the business just gave you confidence to consider doing something yourself.\u201d <\/p>\n

This environment served as the inspiration for the friends to set up their own business in Dublin. <\/p>\n

Fairbrother recalled how, in London<\/a> at the time, \u201csoup places were up and coming, so we thought we would do something like that\u201d.<\/p>\n

She added: \u201cWe just kind of went with it. We didn\u2019t have a plan, we had no experience in business and we had no formal training as chefs. We would practise making one soup a week.\u201d<\/p>\n

The basic business model of a cheap but nutritious lunch of soup, fresh bread and a piece of fruit remained unchanged in the years that followed. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we started off, people weren\u2019t drinking coffee \u2013 they were only drinking tea,” said Fairbrother. \u201cAnd they were really self-conscious about walking around with a cup in their hand. I remember my dad being like, \u2018but sure nobody\u2019s going to do that\u2019. We sold very few coffees in the early days.\u201d <\/p>\n

Healion believes the accessible price point of Soup Dragon meant it always had a wide and varied customer base. \u201cWe\u2019d get students from Bolton Street, solicitors and barristers from the Four Courts, tourists \u2013 every walk of life.\u201d <\/p>\n

\"MaryMary Sheehan, Soup Dragon’s former head of baking <\/p>\n

While the duo would make all the soups in-house themselves, Healion\u2019s late mother, Mary Sheehan, baked the bread and pastries. <\/p>\n

\u201cShe only stopped because of Covid, but she didn\u2019t want to stop at all,\u201d said Healion. \u201cShe was a real people person. She poured the love into the baking. She just had a lightness of touch. <\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019d make simple things like pastries, scones, muffins and brown bread. People would come in requesting her brown bread especially.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe was home-taught but she was phenomenal. Her bread-and-butter pudding was like a cloud.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"NiamhNiamh Healion and Fiona Fairbrother outside Soup Dragon, which they set up and ran together for 25 years <\/p>\n

Speaking of her business partner and friend, Healion said: \u201cWe have been through it all together \u2013 the whole spectrum. Losing parents, getting married, having kids.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd still talking to each other,\u201d joked Fairbrother. \u201cThe friendship is the best thing that came out of it.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome days we are outside locking up and actually can\u2019t close the door because we are laughing so much. That\u2019s special. I don\u2019t think we\u2019ll meet anyone else that has the same sense of humour as us.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s going to be the hardest part, not working together every day,\u201d added Healion. <\/p>\n

She says there is one silver lining in the business\u2019s closure: \u201cWe are finally going to take a holiday together.\u201d <\/p>\n

Soup Dragon will cease trading at the end of February 2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It was Bloomsday in 2000 when best friends Fiona Fairbrother and Niamh Healion set up a hole-in-the-wall lunch…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":302192,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[72,142908,37837,61,60,5861],"class_list":{"0":"post-302191","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-capel-street","10":"tag-dublin-1","11":"tag-ie","12":"tag-ireland","13":"tag-restaurant"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302191","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=302191"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302191\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/302192"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=302191"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=302191"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=302191"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}