A new food truck settles into Tramore Valley Park
DeliQueen is the newest edition to Tramore Valley Park on the city's Southside. The coffee crew has weathered a few storms in their first month.
“Tramore Valley Park is a hidden gem in Cork,” says Graham Mulhearne of DeliQueen, a new food truck based in the old city dump, transformed to the city’s biggest park and managed by The Glen Resource and Sports Centre.
Graham, together with his business partner Peter O’Keefe opened their new venture on the last weekend of September, and suffice to say, it’s been a challenging few weeks for all involved, especially operating outdoors.
“Well like anything in this country, it’s really weather dependent. In the four weekends we’ve been up and running, we’ve had three weather warnings and a storm, but luckily the people coming to the truck have been really amazing and supportive.”
While owning his own business is nothing new as the Waterford-native previously ran a successful marketing company; it was never his intention to stay in that line of work forever. Instead he harboured a much different ambition and it was his involvement in a family business as a teenager, which had the greatest influence on his recent career change.
“I loved working in my aunt’s supermarket growing up and would’ve worked in retail for years after that, but I always wanted to get into food and have a delicatessen because of being in my aunt’s shop.”
So how did it come about that DeliQueen first opened its hatch out in Tramore Valley Park?
“I suppose I had planned on opening a premises in the city centre, and there were quite a few spaces available, but it was really difficult to find the right spot.”
“Then me and Peter decided to go into business together and he was approached by someone about a trailer, so we decided to buy it.”
“On the Cork City Council website they have a list of all the places you can put a food truck and they opened a tender for Tramore Valley Park, which we were lucky enough to get, so we were delighted.”
“A lot of people might remember the park as being the old city dump, but there’s loads of activities going on throughout the week. There’s people training and doing 5k runs and kids coming after school and so much more.”
Graham is right about all that the park now has to offer, as it is home to Cork’s only BMX Track, a full-sized rugby pitch, an outdoor gym, plenty of paths that traverse the 160-acre site, two recently installed table tennis tables, and a volleyball net. The park also hosts various community events throughout the year.
A rather grand sounding ecolab was also opened earlier in the year, and the thatched hut is another addition to the park.
On weekends and throughout the summer months you’ll see sports ranging from American football to ultimate frisbee and cricket played on the pitches of the park, as well as the constant trail of runners and walkers getting their steps in. Dogs too are welcome, but must be kept on a lead.
“I live by the park and use it quite often, so it’s really great to be able to be based there,” Graham said.
“The biggest challenge was definitely trying to get somewhere. We applied to the council in March and have been kind of waiting around since then to hear back.”
“To anyone who’s thinking of starting their own truck, I would say be prepared to put in a good hard slog before you see any return. You have to have some kind of resilience and you can’t really look at it from week to week, you have to see how it looks over a year.”
“Equipment is expensive and we’re recruiting a barista at the minute, which isn’t easy because we’re not close to the city.”
As for his plans for the future, Graham isn’t looking too far ahead.
“If this one goes well, we’d love to get a DeliQueen Two on the road, but we’ll see how this goes first.”
“But do come out to see us and say hello, because a lot of people don’t realise how much Tramore Valley Park has to offer.”
DeliQueen Cork is open at Tramore Valley Park on Fridays 8:30 am - 1:30pm, Saturday 8:45 am- 4 pm and Sunday 9 am -2:30 pm. To find out more about Tramore Valley Park see here
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