A dream has come true for two best friends who have opened their own business in an 'iconic' building in their hometown of Tuam, Co Galway.
Aoife McNevin and Rachel Perry have renovated the much-loved Garvey's bakery that shut its doors in 2014 after a century of baking.
The pair's 'Down the Lane’ bakery and coffee shop opened earlier this week.
"Everyone would have memories of going in and out of Garvey's," Rachel explained. "When we started working on the building, people passing by would stop and say, 'Oh I remember this and I remember the smell'. It's so nice that we can bring that back and add to the history of people walking down the street and smelling the fresh bread.
"People have just been so happy to know something is going in here and it’s nice they can walk by and see the life coming back into it."
Aoife and Rachel's journey to opening their own bakery began in 2021, while they were both in full-time jobs elsewhere.
They started selling their baked goods online and began stocking a number of coffee shops around Galway.
Each had worked a range of jobs after finishing secondary school, from working in pubs to gymnastics judging, pharmacies to factories.
But it quickly became clear where their passion lay.
"It was so overwhelming, the fact that I was like, 'This is actually it, this is what I want to wake up for and do'. It makes all the difference and when you find your passion it’s fulfilling, you’re happy and content and it’s very important," Rachel said.
"Coming in here, we don’t want to go home. In other jobs you’re rushing to get out of the place but in here, we’re like, ‘What else can we do before we go home?’ We want to stay and improve everything."
When they started looking for a location to open their bakery, Aoife said she knew the shuttered Garvey’s bakery was the place for them as soon as she viewed it.
"I came home to Rachel and I was like, ‘I'm going to leave my job, this is it, we’re going to go for it and do it’."
The building had been vacant for the past decade and it needed a lot of work.
"You couldn’t walk straight through it, the floors were uneven, it had no ceiling, no water, no electricity, no walls were the same size, no angle was a right angle," Aoife recalled.
"It was a big learning curve and it was really disheartening at times because so much of the work was on stuff that people don’t see, and we were trying to do it ourselves while keeping the business running from home and trying to juggle our other jobs on top of it."
Now that they have opened their doors, their hard work has paid off. They are excited for what is next to come, but also conscious of the struggles with running a business in a cost-of-living crisis.
"It definitely keeps us up at night, but it’s so nice to have each other. It’s nerve-wrecking because you don’t know if anyone will walk through the door so it is such a leap of faith, but having that support system is a relief and it’s all a mix of nerves and goals," Rachel explained.
Aoife added, "We said, 'If not now, when?' We’re young, we’ve no mortgage, no kids, we had to take that leap of faith or we’d never achieve more. I believe in us, and I believe that if we put in the work, it will work out, and if it doesn’t, at least we tried, we don’t want to look back in ten years and have regrets."
The Leaving Cert results are out on Friday and thinking back to their own experiences in secondary school, Aoife and Rachel said they struggled to know what they wanted to do.
"I found it hard when I was in school, I was in a big friend group and everyone was so motivated and I wasn’t. I didn’t want to do something just for the sake of it," Rachel said. "But now that I’ve found my passion, I’m so motivated."
Aoife’s experience was similar, "While I think college is super important, I didn’t know what direction I wanted to go in. It’s really hard to make that decision when you’re 17 or 18. I'm lucky I never regretted not going to college. I wouldn’t be where I am today if I did go.
"I'm a firm believer that everything happens for a reason. Even if something is really tough, we’re meant to learn those lessons. I was even going through all those other jobs and picking things up from different jobs, but I suppose I subconsciously knew it was leading me somewhere."
