'At 21, I knew an office job wasn't for me, so I started running restaurants'

SOME PEOPLE CAN wait years, even decades, before following through on a decision to change career, but Conor Dunne did it when he was barely out of college.

The then 21-year-old had just finished a finance degree and had been working in an accounting firm for just a few months when he decided that a desk job wasn’t for him.

“An office-based role wasn’t what I wanted to be doing, I wanted to be more people-facing,” Dunne, now 29, tells Fora.

Dunne joined Gourmet Burger Kitchen after his brother, who worked at the chain, mentioned that they needed a supervisor.

The Kildare native took to the industry and quickly advanced through several managerial positions.

Asked if it was difficult to switch careers, he says: “Not really, I’d worked in restaurants during college and it was something that I enjoyed.

“I was managing people and dealing with the financial elements of the business; every day was different. There were so many targets to hit and it was exciting trying to hit them every day.

“I knew I had a good skill set with numbers and could run restaurants, I never went in thinking that I would be a failure. I was confident that I could go in and do well.”

After four years, Dunne left GBK and spent a year working with celebrity chef Clodagh McKenna at Arnotts before taking up the role of senior director of operations at café and catering company KC Peaches.

The move marked a big step up for Dunne and involved him overseeing the movements of hundreds of people.

“I was in charge of operations and HR. It was very fast, and I learnt a lot,” he says.

“Trying to manage about 200, 250 people is difficult, you have to build a good team around you and do the simple things right and just keep trying to move in the right direction financially.”

Link up with Roche

Meanwhile, Dunne’s work at KC Peaches attracted the attention of John Roche, a member of the Roche family dynasty.

The Roches have had a major presence at some of Ireland’s largest companies, such as building giant CRH, and they were recently estimated by the Sunday Independent to have a net worth of €384 million.

John, who has already followed in the family footsteps by getting involved in the property business, had just opened the first in what he hoped would be a chain of healthy food restaurants and wanted to pick Dunne’s brain.

“John was trying to build a company that was similar to KC Peaches, and when he told me about Cocu I saw it as a great opportunity to put my stamp on things and build something from the ground up,” Dunne says.

Cocu's Chatham Street restuarant

Dunne joined Cocu – a play on ‘counter culture’ – as operations manager at the start of 2016, just after it had opened its first two locations, both in Dublin city, on Baggot Street and Hatch Street.

The company says that it offers “fast, over-the-counter food but using local, seasonal and healthy ingredients”.

“Baggot Street and Hatch Street had only just opened, and financially and operationally the business needed to be structured,” Dunne says.

“Financially we weren’t strong enough. From March, April of that year we were moving in the right direction.”

New store

Soon afterwards, the business opened a new store on Chatham Street near Grafton Street, which is now the company’s main location.

“We were preparing for three months, bringing in people for recruitment (and) making sure all the systems were in place for things like the tills,” Dunne says.

“That’s how I wanted to put my stamp on it, by making sure that we hit the ground running and it would be five stars.”

Since the start of 2017, the company has also run a catering business out of its new store and it recently landed its first major client, sportswear store Lululemon.

Staff at Cocu Chatham Street

“We put all the catering through Chatham Street, we have a centralised, industrial kitchen there. We are busy with office catering day-to-day, and we cater for about 200 people on a daily basis,” Dunne says.

The company now employs about 50 people between its three locations and its head office. Annual accounts are yet to be filed for the business, but Dunne says that the firm turned over between €2 million and €3 million last year and is already profitable.

Young professionals

Cocu focuses on a strong breakfast and lunch menu and mainly sells salads and wraps for those on the go, as well as offering meals for those who would prefer to eat at the venue, Dunne says.

“50% of our trade is at lunchtime trade; we also have a big catering portfolio and do a strong coffee trade, but business dies at 5pm. We have tried dinner, but it doesn’t feel as if there is a market for it.”

Many of the chain’s wraps have an option to ‘bulk it up’ by adding meats like lamb or chicken, and Dunne says that the stores would often be used by gym and fitness enthusiasts.

“We wouldn’t look at just one market, (but) the people coming into Cocu do tend to lead fast, healthy lifestyles and our product will keep them full for the day,” he says.

“We would mostly sell to young professionals. People just out of college up to those in their mid-30s or 40s would be the main people coming in every day.”

Cocu operations director Conor Dunne

While the company is purely a Dublin one at the moment, Dunne says that it has been keeping an eye on local rivals, such as Boojum, which have opened outlets in Cork and other cities.

He says that a move to the Rebel County isn’t out of the question, but is unlikely to happen until next year.

Nevertheless, competition is becoming increasingly fierce in the capital for outlets pitching themselves as ‘healthy food on the go’, chains like the fast-growing Chopped.

Dunne says that Cocu marks itself apart mainly through the quality of its food, which the firm makes an effort to source locally.

“We could have sourced our free-range chicken from outside of Ireland as it’s more expensive to buy it in Ireland, but we wanted to stay true to our ethos and make sure that our product is top quality,” he says.

A Cocu takeaway salad

New projects

Dunne says that Cocu is planning to expand both its main restaurant business and its catering arm while maintaining profitability. He adds that the firm is likely to add another pair of Dublin locations this year.

“We will set up in the right areas if the rights units come up. We would hope to have two new units in Dublin this year and then we would look outside of Dublin, or even outside of Ireland, next year,” he says.

The 29-year-old is ambitious and, while he is committed to Cocu, he intends to get involved with a few different projects as well as the growing chain.

Rather than striking out on his own, Dunne says that he and Roche are mulling several ideas for new ventures.

“I feel there’s a road here for me that could see me with John for the next 10 years, with Cocu or with something else,” he says.

“I’d be more inclined to want to be a partner in multiple businesses than having equity in my own company and setting up my own thing.”

He adds: “(John and I) are looking into a few different things at the moment, some are in the hospitality business as well.

“The line into that is trying to maximise growth at Cocu – as long as I’m enjoying my work and am moving forward, I’m very happy here.”

This article is part of our weekly series examining the nuts and bolts of businesses. If you would like to see your company featured please email news@fora.ie.