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Irish Times
3 days ago
- Irish Times
One night in a Dublin fast-food restaurant: ‘There's nothing better than a kebab at 3am'
The atmosphere in Wowburger on Wexford Street at 10pm on Friday night is disconcertingly calm. At times it's quiet enough to hear the beat of repetitive electronic music and the sizzle of burgers on the grill . The fast-food venue is within stumbling range of many of Dublin's most popular nightclubs and bars and has been synonymous with the city's pub culture since 2016. Tonight, the drunk food gold rush is set to kick off at 1am. READ MORE For the next few hours security guards Said Mahamud (30) and Sherriffddeen Badmus (55) enjoy the quiet before the hard work begins. Their work schedule is a nocturnal 9-5: starting late in the evening and finishing as dawn breaks. Mahamud has been working here for two years and doesn't mind the work of managing hungry, drunken crowds. He is careful, he says, to 'always use 'please'.' 'Ninety per cent of the customers are good and respectful. Teenagers are the worst ... but we figure out a solution,' he says. 'We give them a warning, a second warning and the third time we take them outside and give them their food.' They stand inside the double door of the diner and beside the tills, eyes open. [ One Night in Dublin ... with the bouncers at Copper Face Jacks: Once you're gone, you're gone Opens in new window ] Said Mahamud says he once saw a lady stealing a bag of potatoes from outside the kitchen at Wowburger. Photograph: Evan Treacy for The Irish Times Normally the customers, although drunk, are easy enough to manage, they agree. But when the teenagers pour in after cheap entry nights into Dicey's nightclub on Mondays and Tuesdays, things get 'messy'. Mahamud and Badmus are pragmatic. 'Normally you can reason with people, but once they're drunk, it's a different reality,' says Badmus. The funniest thing Mahamud has seen is a lady stealing a bag of potatoes from outside the kitchen, piling them on her back. The sacks are 25kg (55lbs) each. She didn't get very far. Leonardo is one of the Deliveroo riders picking up orders at Wowburger. Photograph: Evan Treacy for The Irish Times Badmus has been working here for around a year, commuting from Carlow twice a week for his shifts. Born in Nigeria, he moved to Odesa, Ukraine in 1998 to work in logistics. Odesa is a very multi-ethnic city, he says, because of its important trading position on the Black Sea. He moved to Ireland last year because of the Russian invasion. His son is still there, and he worries about him 'every day'. He doesn't want to return to Ukraine after the war is over, believing it would mean starting from scratch again. 'Why leave certainty for uncertainty? But we pray for the war to end.' While the staff wait for the rush, delivery drivers in all blue come in and out. Leonardo, a Brazilian aged 31, has been in Ireland for 40 days and is shy to speak in English. His delivery uniform is spotless. Julia, one of several Brazilians working the late shift, says when she first began working in the restaurant as a cleaner last year, she had no English. Now, she works front of house with her friend Vanessa, calling out orders when they're ready. She's taking classes in an English language school and soon hopes to get into university to study marketing, so that she can stay in Ireland beyond thetwo-year permit for Brazilian language students. Vanessa works front of house to call out the ready orders at Wowburger. Photograph: Evan Treacy for The Irish Times After working here for a year does she still enjoy eating the burgers? Yes, she says, but she limits herself to once a week. Because the food is fresh, there are bags of potatoes stacked up outside the kitchen. 'It's not from frozen. We do all the prep daily in the morning,' says restaurant manager, Anderson Domingues (32), also Brazilian. 'Our burgers and chicken come in every day fresh. 'Let's say it this way, it's nice fast food.' On a busy night, the team will dish up around 600 meals, he says. Back in 2016, they first opened their first burger hut in The Workman's Club. A cheeseburger was priced at just under €6 then – today, the same burger will cost you €10.50. The Wexford Street venue is located nearby popular clubs and bars, such as Copper Face Jacks, Whelan's, Flannery's and The Camden. There are now eight Wowburger restaurants in Dublin and one in Wicklow. Domingues manages three of them on the south side. [ Out with the Dublin's street cleaners: Smashed bottles, vomit, urine and worse Opens in new window ] Brendan and Marty opt to eat their order in a booth at Wowburger. Photograph: Evan Treacy for The Irish Times With his smiley, open face, he looks like he wouldn't buckle under the pressure of the kitchen. After seven years of working there, he says the chaos feels 'normal'. 'It can be chaotic, it can be messy depending on the team that we have. If you don't have a strong team, you can get a backlog of orders really, really quickly,' he says. Time is money for the company: they aim to have people's order ready just 10 minutes after they pay. 'The challenge is always the speed, like you need to be fast,' says Domingues. 'But it depends on the pressure that the team is dealing with. A lot of people tend to just stand on the top of the counter and they'll say: 'Where's my burger, where's my burger'.' The team decided to get security guards after just a few messy nights on Wexford Street. You don't have to hang around for long before you see what he means. Three men walk in at 10.30pm with slurred words. Mahamud's eye follows them. 'Ned be polite', says Ned's friend, as Ned (not his real name) walks up to the counter to complain about his order being late. It has been about 10 minutes since he ordered. When he receives his meal and has eaten half of it, Ned starts throwing the food. 'Ned, Ned, Ned, no' one friend says slowly, as if talking to a toddler. 'Someone get a water gun.' A strike lands: one of them ends up with mayonnaise on his arm. They cajole him out of the table, and leave arm in arm. Disaster averted. Most punters before midnight are (relatively) sober and friendly. Yoursa, Lucia and Pablo sit at a booth for hours, chatting in Spanish. They found themselves in Wowburger because 'everything else was closed' at 10.30pm on a Friday. Yoursa could not classify their meal as late night drunk food, saying 'drunk food would be eaten at 6am' in Spain. [ A night with Dublin's taxi drivers: 'If somebody decides to run, you can't control it' Opens in new window ] Adam Barrett is up from Galway with his friend Jack Corcoran in Wowburger on Wexford Street. Photograph: Evan Treacy for The Irish Times A post-midnight snack, according to Adam Barrett (21), from Galway, is essential to a night out. He describes the 24-hour deli in his hometown as 'keeping the place together'. 'There's nothing better than a kebab at 3am,' he claims. Barrett is up from Galway with his friend Jack Concanon (23), taking it easy before their big night out on Saturday. They couldn't escape the drunken hoards however: 'A random 35-year-old walked past me and pretended to stab me as I was outside. He just went 'were you scared',' says Barrett, shaking his head in disbelief. Adam Barker (28), from Bray, slides into a faintly greasy, yellow and red leather booth in a suit. When asked about his choice of dress – it stands out in a crowd of jeans, T-shirts and bomber jackets – he explains he was across the road at a comedy gig in Whelan's for his mother's birthday. 'I'm a hungry man,' he says. 'I don't look it, but I eat a lot of food.' He eats the chips, pockets the burger and heads back into the party.
Irish Times
03-08-2025
- Business
- Irish Times
One Night in Dublin ... with the bouncers at Copper Face Jacks: Once you're gone, you're gone
The Coppers bouncers see the dodgy man early and eye him as he snakes his way up the queue to the main door of Ireland's most famous nightclub. Before the middle-aged man in the tan leather jacket has any real notion of what's going on, the crash barriers part just wide enough for him to be ushered away from the entrance. He sways gently in the warm Saturday night breeze, his momentary confusion quickly replaced by annoyance. His protestations of sobriety – a bit too loud and a bit too indignant – fall on deaf ears as disinterested bouncers turn away. The scene is repeated occasionally outside Copper Face Jacks on a Saturday summer night but the security staff handle the odd drunk calmly and with little fuss. Once you're gone, you're gone – and protestations are stonewalled with a firm: 'Sorry, it's not happening.' READ MORE As the man in the tan jacket weaves away, a group of laughing young women in Dublin GAA jerseys carrying a small silver cup rock up. They're exuberant but sober(ish) and get to skip the queue when Cathal Jackson, the Coppers King, hears they're All-Ireland winners. Cathal Jackson, owner of Copper Face Jacks, with captain Aoife Deegan and Meadhbh Hicks of the Dublin under-23 camogie team. Photograph: Conor Pope Despite the fact that Coppers has made Jackson a millionaire many times over – it was nearly sold seven years ago for €40 million, andits cloakroom alone makes him a reported annual profit of more than €250,000 – the almost 70-year-old former garda from the midlands still stands at the door four nights a week watching folk file past his team of seasoned bouncers. [ From the archive: Copper Face Jacks reports surge in profits after pandemic lockdown rules lifted Opens in new window ] It's far from all this he was reared. On a leave of absence from the guards, this son of a garda, took a punt on an unfashionable street in Dublin 2 in early 1996. 'It was quiet enough for the first six weeks or so but after that it took off and it never really stopped,' he says, as the bag of chips bought for his dinner goes cold. There was a perception always that it was country people, guards and nurses who went to Coppers but its much more cosmopolitan now — Aidan McCormack The secret seems obvious now but it wasn't then. Coppers focused as much on Mondays and Tuesdays as on weekends and became hugely popular with weekend workers including – famously – guards and nurses. And it never got too hung up on being cool or exclusive. The music was always popular and familiar, and the craic was always 90. People went to Coppers to dance and to laugh and for the odd shift. By 12.30am the queue is long and the dance floors heaving. A couple in their 40s mill the faces off each other at the bar but pretty much everyone else seems happy to dance. It's not a place for heavy drinking, with the average spend per punter less than €20 or three pints of lager. Jackson's happy with that. He doesn't want messy drunks in his club; they cause more trouble than they're worth. Managing the staff is Aidan McCormack, a Coppers lifer who celebrates his 30th anniversary on the door next February. He likes working in what he says is the most famous nightclub in Ireland. 'It's known all over the world. There was a perception always that it was country people, guards and nurses who went to Coppers but its much more cosmopolitan now,' he says. What are the most important things to remember when working the door? 'We want people to say they had a good night,' he says. 'But the first thing people have to be is the proper age and they can't be intoxicated.' As he speaks, five lads shuffle up a bit too sheepishly. Almost everyone going to Coppers has their ID checked and this group is no exception. Of the five, one 18-year-old boy is refused. He looks heartbroken but his buddies rally round and they leave together, laughing. When it's pointed out to McCormack that most people going into a nightclub at midnight have drink taken, he acknowledges the point. 'We show common sense,' he says. 'You see those two steps at the doorway,' he adds, pointing downwards. 'They're very handy and if people can't manage them it's a sign, for sure.' Dublin Camogie players at the top of the queue heading into Coppers. Photograph: Conor Pope The bouncers don't just rely on the two-steps, though. 'We've layers of security as people come through,' McCormack continues. 'One looks at your face straight on and another watches as you walk past and then a third will cast an eye over you. You might get past one doorman, but you're not going to get past three of us. 'But we're not really here to refuse people. We're just here to make sure that no one is too young or likely to cause trouble.' Noel Holloway has been on the door for 18 years, while Michael Burke, standing beside him, has been here for 13 years. They're smiley rather than stony-faced and laugh and joke through the night. When Holloway is asked what the biggest challenges in his job are he doesn't skip a beat. 'It's working with these Muppets,' he says. As he talks, his eyes never leave the queue. 'We know people come with fake IDs so we sometimes ask to see a bank card to confirm names match,' he says. He pauses. 'But a lot of young people don't carry bank cards so we ask to see their social media accounts to be sure. But even then a lot of young ones have fake social media accounts to match the names on their fake ID. It can be tricky,' he says. Across from Coppers are two relaxed guards. 'This street is self-policing in some ways,' one says. 'All the nightclubs, but particularly Coppers, are well run. There's very little messing and the security staff know what they're doing. They've been doing it long enough anyway.' It's 1am and the queue is long. When Jackson is asked what he looks for in a bouncer he says first what he doesn't want – excessive physicality. 'It's much more important that we can talk people down,' he says. A young woman approaches and asks for paracetamol. She's ushered to the on-site medical room to be seen by the paramedic. Minutes later somebody else comes out and says she has a headache. She too is taken care of. Jackson shrugs when The Irish Times expresses amazement that people ask bouncers for painkillers and are looked after. Copper Face Jacks: 'All the nightclubs, but particularly Coppers, are well run,' says one of the gardaí on Harcourt Street. Photograph: Aidan Crawley 'It's what we do anyway,' he says. Minutes pass and a young woman wanders out lost and disorientated. Discreetly Jackson tells staff to make sure she isn't alone. 'We'd never leave a young woman out here on her own,' he says. The girl, it emerges, has pals to take care of her so the night goes on. By 2am more than 1,000 people are inside; it has a capacity of between 1,400 and 1,700 depending on which areas are opened up – and the mood is exuberant. The doors must close and the punters must be sent home by 2.30am. It infuriates Jackson who repeatedly expresses bafflement that the licensing laws in the State have yet to be updated to allow people if they so wish to dance later into the night. [ From the archive: Just how did Ireland end up with such weird licensing laws? Opens in new window ] 'We are not the same as the late bars so it makes no sense to me that we have to work under the same rules,' he says. 'People certainly aren't drinking as much as they used to,' he adds. 'Some are using other stimulants. There's a lot more cocaine around the city.' But he says there is a very strict policy when it comes to cocaine in Coppers. 'We have a zero-tolerance policy on that,' he says as the craic-fuelled dancing goes on behind him, with Sunday morning probably feeling like a long, long way away for the Coppers clubbers. Next in the 'One Night in Dublin' series - a night at the museum; a noctural walkabout at IMMA - on Tuesday
