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WE THOUGHT WE’D reached the peak of the doughnut craze. We were wrong.
Ireland has been awash with glazed hunks of sugar for a long time. But they were usually available from supermarkets – five jam ones for a few bob. None of your fancy stuff.
But over the last 18 months or so, it’s become more common to see pop-up doughnut shacks squashed inside your local convenience store.
The hipsters came too, of course.
They brought their vegan cronuts and their artisan coffee – draped their offerings in fair trade golden syrup and charged you half your rent for the trouble. And you paid. My God how you paid. Those Instagram likes were worth the poverty, right?
But, like most other food crazes, we may have thought we had reached peak doughnut in recent months. Shutters were pulled on a number of businesses and we waited for the next big thing – deconstructed burgers where you chop your own lettuce, probably.
Alas, that’s when Krispy Kreme arrived into Blanchardstown in the west of the capital. It offered a 24 hour drive-through. Cue hysteria. Hysteria and very long queues.
The store, which is the first of the chains outlets to open in Ireland, closed at 11pm, but the company also operated a 24-hour drive-through.
Krispy Kreme opened the outlet on Wednesday of last week, with hundreds queuing before 7am on the opening day to place an order.
And they kept on coming. The tailbacks became so severe that the firm’s management had been forced to shut the drive-through last night.
Frequent beeping of car horns at 1am meant that those living in an apartment complex 200 metres away were unable to sleep.
So, in the name of journalistic integrity, TheJournal.ie decided to head down for a look.
https://www.facebook.com/SolidShnake/videos/1811876492195367/
Driving from the office in Dublin city centre at 10.30pm last night the roads were as you’d expect: empty. The Navan Road was a ghost town, save for the odd headlight heading towards the city.
A fork left off and around a roundabout and we’re into Blanchardstown Shopping Centre. This is where things change. The lights, the din, the snaking queue open up in front of me – all mashed together as the pungent smell of sweet baked doughnuts filters through and mixes with the nearby bang of McDonald’s (it’s not a great combo).
It was an almost carnival-like atmosphere. The steady stream of cars arriving, young lads and girls whooping, dads bringing their kids for a treat and the taxi man who finished his shift and wanted to see what all the fuss was about.
A Krispy Kreme staff member made sure that the queue behaved itself and that there was nobody cutting in. Elsewhere, there were glimpses of staff members handing out branded hats, till workers were flat out tapping cards and taking cash. Other staff had to keep the place looking good – a tough task considering the volume of people.
One staff member told us, it had been a “mad house” all week.
“It’s been a mad house for a week. This is probably the quietest I’ve seen it in a long time. There was one night, someone was finishing around 4.30 in the morning and then they saw her in her uniform and then the cars started beeping and the lads started shouting and roaring. You can’t have that when there’s young families around the corner trying to sleep. I completely understand why this is happening.”
So we’re shutting it down for a week to see if they behave themselves – if they don’t then it’ll stay shut.
While down there, we observed a number of young people gathered outside the shop, most without any doughnuts to be seen. A lot of people didn’t want to give their names and admit they were queuing for an hour for a treat at 11pm on a Wednesday night.
But then the lads arrived – two guys from nearby Mulhuddart. George Weah (I think he may have been lying) and Sean Delaney said they’ve been coming down here each night for fun.
Sean, who claimed he was a second year computer science student in DIT, said: “It’s a bit like a house party all the time. People are coming down and having a bit of craic. I can understand why they’re closing earlier than usual but that’s the way it goes. It’s cheaper than going to the pub anyway.”
A taxi driver sitting in the drive-through queue didn’t want to give his name but said he was so intrigued by what was happening that he had to come and check.
“It’s all over the news and I was dropping a lad in here anyway so I said I’d give it a go. I’ve been here a half hour and I say I’ve another half hour ahead of me. I’d get out of the queue and go home now but I can’t move. So I’m here for the foreseeable.”
Security from the Blanchardstown centre was drafted in last night due to Krispy Kreme’s decision to shut the drive-through at 11.30pm yesterday. The guard, arranging his cones to block the entrance to the drive-through, shook his head when asked for a chat.
The trip to Krispy Kreme after dark was strange to say the least. The passion to get doughnuts at an ungodly hour was startling. The shell-shocked faces on the staff as they looked at the seemingly never-ending conveyor belt of hungry and agitated people is still etched on my conscience.
Whipping doughnuts from ovens, precision sugar powdering, glazing away as fast as they could go, their company sergeant barking: “MORE CHOCOLATE DREAMCAKES. HAS ANYONE ANY NUTTY CHOCOLATTA?”
Yes, that’ll stay with me. I didn’t even get a doughnut in the end.
We all thought doughnuts had gone the way of the burrito. We were wrong.
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Pass that diving bell on sir john rogersons quay every day on the way too work and always wondered what it was! Explains the name of the street adjacent to it too. Good work Journal.ie. interesting little article.
you’d think the Dublin Council would stick a little sign post beside it with some info, I always wondered too. It’s quite interesting.
The diving bell was made in Grendons foundry in Drogheda where Scotch Hall shopping centre is now, right beside the Viaduct bridge mentioned in the caption. They were going to scrap it until protests from a group of conservationists forced Dublin County Council to restore it and display it where it is now.
I’ll tell you what’s a Dublin curiosity: The place is a complete dump.
The British gave the Irish their modern cities and as soon as they left, the Irish made a complete balls of the place. Out will the old Georgians and in with the concrete tat.
If you want to see a massive planning disaster on a monumental scale, go to Dublin.
The ugliest citiy in Europe just keeps getting uglier.
Think you are getting confused with Belfast, now that is a complete dump.
Dublin didn’t suffer years of bombings and terrorism, Mark.
Having said that, urban planning in Belfast is 100 times better than Dublin.
It takes people with appreciation and aesthetics for architecture to keep a city in shape – something people in Dublin lack in general.
Your right Dublin did not suffer years of terrorism like Belfast, it was just blown apart by the British army. Dublin is the biggest most beautiful Georgian city in the world. Sure it has got a few ugly buildings, what big city doesn’t. Im from London we have alot of ugly buildings. But i totally disagree with your comments. I visit Dublin many times and it has alot of beautiful architecture.
You must be blind then, Mark. The complete historical fabric of Dublin has been destroyed by corrupt councilors and developers over the past 50 years.
And you can’t expect the British army to just stand around while a bunch of yobs run riot.
When i said it was just blown apart by the British army, i was talking about Dublin, just before the Irish kicked them out. There has been some bad planning decisions in Dublin over the last 50 years i agree. But the city has some beautiful areas. The reason why the city gets millions of tourists every year. If you want to see very bad planning come to many english towns and cities we have alot of ugly ones unfortunately.
Belfast is nowhere near as nice as Dublin.
You’ve overlooked Glasgow in your assessment of Europe’s ugliest cities but then again it’s not really the point,you’re merely here to stick it to the Taigs.
Much of Georgian Dublin is still standing,i doubt you’ve ever set foot south of the border,let alone in Dublin.
When one has hatred for a place or people they tend to hate everything about the country and wish it was not there. It is a sad way to live a life. Dublin is a beautiful city just like London, both have there downsides what big city doesn’t. But as far as big cities go in the UK and Ireland they are the best we have. Even if a few disagree.
Nice article, love finding out about quirky things in cities. Also, sound for including an explanation on what a crows foot mark is…there is one on the stone gate into my house and although I guessed that it was something to do with measurements, I never really knew what it was for.
Work in that diving bell was horrific. The men suffered greatly health wise from the pressure . In fact it shortened there life considerably. Another fantastic sight to see was the Dublin dry docks in Dublin port the older of which was recently filled in to make space for containers. I had the pleasure to work in these docks and it is such a shame to see it filled in.
Now theres some really interesting things about Ireland that give an insight into history and link modern day
Those crow’s foot benchmarks are to be found all over Ireland. They were put on things like stone bridges or at the base of granite entrance piers. You could locate them from the OS Maps. A good number of them can still be found around the country.
Fantastic article.
Really enjoyed this thank you a nice way to start Sunday
Re Pic 7 – pity the lump of meteorite that fell in Tipperary in 1865 wasn’t a whole lot bigger.
Great article. St. Andrews Resource Centre has published a booklet explaining the full history of the diving bell: “Dublin’s Diving Bell – A History”. I’m not sure if it’s still available.
The Diving Bell on Sir John Rogersons Quay was actually saved by St. Andrews Resource Centre Pearse Street in Partnership with Dublin Port and others. The City Council were not involved and the space on the Quay was given by the DDDA. The whole project was written about in a book published by the St. Andrews Heritage Project in 2003. The book is available free from St. Andrews in Pearse Street and it gives the History of the Diving Bell and details of the the project to restore it. For more information on this fascinating piece of Irish and Dublin’s history contact:
Betty Ashe 01 6771930.
1st pic isn’t 51 Stephens green, that’s on Stephens green south, think it’d the dept of foreign affairs building.
Hi Barro – you’re absolutely right so I went and snapped a pic of number 51 on my way into work today to give people an idea of which building it is, should they happen to be passing by. It’s the last pic in the slideshow there now.
Cheers, Susan
This is a good answer to the lack of Dublin “discoverability” in the “Why does Dublin have no fountains” blog post at http://blog.likeplace.ie
You think? Fountains do not make cities. We have fountains in trafalgar square, they are off most of the year. What traveller wants to see the same in every city they visit. How boring. I like the way Dublin has the beautiful old georgian street lights. Then you travel to smithfield and you have something completely different, funky and arty, something you would see in new york. Thats what is great about Dublin and its districts. Many european cities especially along the med are very similar. I like difference, unique. Not boring and mirror image of somewhere else.
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