2 days ago
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.
