Take a trip down memory lane
Tribes Café, Nancy Spains, and the Gingerbread House are some of the most dearly missed Leeside businesses according to nostalgic Cork Reddit users.
A post by user Abyssic_Dead on Cork’s dedicated Reddit paged asked people to name some of the now closed businesses they miss the most.
Abyssic_Dead got the ball rolling, naming the FM Store in Queens Old Castle as one of the businesses they have the fondest memories of.
“Used to get so many t-shirts and stuff there back in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s. They had these iron on transfers which meant cheap, good-looking t-shirts for us kids.”
Another one they mentioned was Comet Records on Washington Street: “It was the first point of call every Saturday. The place had a lot of character, and those two guys were very helpful. Used to get gig tickets there too. Even if you didn't have all the money, you'd take out a payment plan.”
Loads of Cork Redditors responded to the post, with one writing: “Nancy's (Nancy Spains) used to be cranking during the day when they had the beat the clock challenge (pints would be dirt cheap at midday and get more expensive every hour).”
Redditor lowpockets recalled: “I snuck into my 1st gig in Nancy Spains at 14, one of the band saw me trying to hide in the gig room before it started and came down and had a chat.”
Tribes Café on Tuckey Street got numerous mentions. One former customer said: “Tribes was fantastic. You could grab a coffee and have a laugh after a night club or have a good place to meet friends if ye didn't want or couldn't afford pints. We need a space like that for young people now.”
Another dearly missed business was the famed Gingerbread House on Paul Street, now Amicus. “When I was in school, we’d go to the Gingerbread House for quiche and homemade lemonade. We thought we were so sophisticated!” shared Bee_7576.
The iconic Cudmore’s fruit, veg and ice-cream shop on the corner of Patrick Street and Winthrop Street got many mentions too. The shop, a popular meeting point for town-goers, closed in 1999 when Vodafone took out a 25 year lease on the premises.
One Redditor wrote of Cudmore’s: “It looked amazing and exotic with all the sweets and fruits filling every space, things like cane sugar on string which was melted in boiled water with salt as a cure-all for any illness (before flat 7up replaced it), being allowed to buy sweets from there was a massive treat. Patrick Street looks quite soulless sometimes now.”
Other businesses mentioned were the Virgin Megastore on Daunt Square (formally the Queens Old Castle), An Crúiscín Lán on Douglas Street, The Sextant on Albert Street, and Uneeda Bookshop on Oliver Plunkett Street.