Soho Coffee To Come To Ireland

Egan Hospitality, the Irish catering company, is to spend €2 million opening 10 branches of Soho Coffee in Ireland.  In a climate saturated with coffee outlets, it is Soho Coffee's wider selection of food products that makes it distinctive. Chris Copner, who along with his business partner Penny Manuel purchased the firm, stated, "Obviously there are lots of chains of coffee — Costa, Starbucks, Insomnia — companies like that. Where we're different is that over 60% of our sales are in food: we do sandwiches, panini, jacket potatoes, soups, cakes — so we have a wide range of food which is not necessarily the norm in coffee shops."   Egan Hospitality also runs Bel Cibo, and is contracted to supply catering for the Royal Hospital in Kilmainham, the National Gallery, as well as for a number of college campuses.    Confident that the Soho Coffee will be as successful in Ireland because it  can "offer people a lunch rather than just a cup of coffee", Egan explained that he has now set his mind on suitable locations for the stores: "What we really need to do is find sites. We're looking at hospitals and colleges, so it doesn't necessarily need to be a high street location."   He went on to elucidate their strong starting position: "We already have that infrastructure in place so there's no huge capital expenditure with us having to buy a warehouse, kit it out with a central kitchen, or put vans on the road."