We Want to Help
The Tory Top Café and Chocolate Factory (and the cute boy Rory)
There’s something about humanity where we want to help people. At least if we’re not a crusty, cranky, bitter aul fuck who’s had the life drained out of us by living in a cesspit. Or maybe I need to work retail? (I really don’t need to work retail.)
Then there’s Rory (Ruari?) from the Tory Top Café and Chocolate Factory. Me and a friend randomly ran into each other on the street, she did her dress shopping, I picked up my photos I’m using in my volunteering, we regathered and went for a coffee. And what a coffee it was! All served up by the chatty, fairly fucking hot, friendly Rory. (It was actually a hot chocolate and a mocha, so only a quarter coffee, but more on that later.)
The Tory Top Café is a strange, quiet place and one of the nicest finds I’ve finded in ages. Not least because of what I assume is the owner/manager/frontman/entrepreneur. This man, who nattered away to everyone in the relaxed, small café cum chocolate spot helped relax me and helped relax the woman with me. So much so that once I left my anxiety spiked as all I wanted to do was go back to my pals (Rory is now one of them, whether he likes it or not,) drink more mochas and chat more chats. Mochas which aren’t too awful for your health because the chocolate is vegan and natural, with nothing superfluous added, and which is the healthiest, nicest chocolate you can get in a coff. (That’s the more about the chocolate I just said I’d get to.)
Why I say humanity wants to help, and ponder whether I should work retail, is because that’s exactly what Rory did. It was €8.50 for our mocha and hot chocolate, pricey, but not for what we got. The Tory Top Café and Chocolate Factory isn’t retail, it’s help.
With the entire premises kitted out in reclaimed, recycled and up-cycled furniture, wood and even bar stools hopefully not stolen from a pub on a night of debauchery (although it’d make for a good story) the café is a little enclave where those who are worn but still useful can find a home. The hot lad told us how the bar we were sitting at was made of wood taken from the upstairs floor. And that’s not all we were told. We talked about the hurling, we talked about where to get good but affordable clothes, we talked about bottles of wine, and the genius worker behind all of this was just as involved as he smiled, made coffees and choccies, and dealt with every customer enjoying their Saturday morning.
What you have in the Tory Top is the future. A little café where you can sit with your friends at one of the tables, in comfort, or you can sit at the bar counter and have the ‘Pub’ experience. It was like something out of an American fillum (or Friends) but actually good because it was in Cork, with Cork people and no Dubs. Although I did hear a Limerick fella was snooping around. (Probably trying to steal the chocolate making workshops the café runs for groups, where you can bring a bottle of wine if you like. Corkage is sending me a glass of it via An Post.)
What I felt when I was in this café was the natural desire for people to help other people. Of course we’d paid for our drinks but when I thought I’d lost my bank card my pal lent me the 40c I was short and Rory told me to go back to where I last knew I had it and he’d make me another mocha, free of charge, when I got back. Me being the goo-brained eejit that I am my bank card was just in my too small, coat pocket trapped with all the other stuff I’d shoved in there.
In return for her generosity my pal gets an invite to my place for tea when she needs to relax (it’s a standing invite) and Rory, for helpfully pointing out I’m now in debt to her, gets a scathing review where I give The Tory Top Café and Chocolate Factory 10/10.
Despite me panicking about a new problem being added to my list of problems neither my friend nor the manager of this café—who’d seen me once before—showed anything but concern and friendliness. I didn’t even feel embarrassed once I realised the card was in my pocket all along, where it was just hiding. I felt like people had my back. And like I could talk, and chat, and be free.
A darkened room, peaceful, warm in the cold, it seems, and cool in the warmth the Tory Top Café and Chocolate Factory doesn’t have the bustle of other cafés nearby. What it does have is the kind of quiet life some people are so in need of. It’s a peace where you can have a serious conversation with a witty barman (coffeeman? chocolate man?) interrupting all knowingly when the talk hits a clunk and he cheers things up with a glint in his eye and a cute look on his face. And he is incredibly cute, lol. (You can quote me on that, although not many people will pick up on this. I’ve been very coy and circumspect in my compliments.)
This café is a delight, and it’s a delight exactly because the effort has been put in. People want their own life, of course, but when people are empowered to help others on their own terms, when people who’ve worked retail, or in charities, or just with one other goddamn human, as a human themselves, when people who know how to help are at the wheel, with some secure backing (financial, state, philanthropic, familial, whatever...) they want to extend the good times to their business life. That’s all we want from any part of life. To help, be helped, and for everything to be OK. Why can’t more businesses be like this?
Most of the time people appreciate real help. It’s the cranky bitter old fuckers who are keeping us back (and many of them aren’t even old at all.) These are the people who’ve been living in a cesspit, the mire and the crab-bucket where they can experience no joy in offering 40c to their friend who thought she just lost her bankcard, or to two people who sometimes have it tough and just want a chat in what I believe is one of the greatest cafés to hit Cork City since Tribes.
The Tory Top Café and Chocolate Shop. Chalk it down, girl! Or boy. Or Enby. If you’re a good sort I’d say you’re more than welcome in this beautiful haunt. Like I said, 10/10 stars!