Our bi-monthly award for March-April 2023 has gone to Rift Coffee and The Larder at 29-30 Mallow Street. Pictured outside the café and shop receiving the award from Maura are some of the Rift Coffee team, Craig Switzer, Chloe Rice, Diego Muller, Seb Oguey and Ciara Sexton (Photo: Adrian Butler/Limerick Leader)

Rift Coffee first started as a pop-up for events and markets in 2017 and in 2018 first opened its doors in Mallow Street. In 2020, it also took over the unit next door as The Larder, a shop and deli which sell fine wines and organic speciality foods. The Tidy Towns team love this dog-friendly café, not only for its slick, modern outside appearance with lovely paintwork and signage, but also for its emphasis on sustainability as it strives to sell home produced food and encourage the use of reusable or compostable cups.

Since first opening, Rift Coffee’s reputation as a speciality coffee shop serving the best of Irish and international coffee roasters has continued to grow, and it now has a loyal customer base, including many of the four-legged variety, as it became one of the first dog-friendly cafes in Limerick city. They will also be reopening their seasonal wine nights with small plates in June along with other events. The wine nights typically run three evenings a week and focus on serving low intervention wines and an array of tapas style plates. You can keep up to date with events on their social media platforms on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook, or simply call in to enjoy their delicious food and coffee.

Rift Coffee and The Larder is our second winner of 2023, since we switched to bi-monthly awards this year, and will be in with a chance to be our Overall Winner for 2023 at next year’s annual event, along with the January-February winner Dolans.

Our annual event to announce the overall winner for 2022 will also be taking place next week, so watch this space!