Bewley's Coffee House

In Real Life:

The Dublin Cafe Institution that is Bewley's is still going strong in its traditional venues of Westmoreland Street and Grafton Street. The Bewleys family opened the first "Oriental Cafe" in South Great Georges Street in 1894, followed two years later by Westmoreland Street, which expanded into a hotel at the back.

With the large, bustling tea-rooms, Bewley's was the perfect place for writers to come in and observe their fellow Dubliners taking a break, meeting friends and lovers and of course, drinking tea and coffee. Brendan Behan, Brain O'Nolan and Patrick Kavanaugh were three famous regulars in the '50's.

The explosion of coffee shops in Dublin over the past decade has made for a lot of competition for these traditional cafes, but recently the Bewleys operation has greatly expanded and there are smaller branches of the cafes dotted across the suburbs, not to mention a large new hotel in Ballsbridge.