Tommaso Tries Another Name Change

Tommaso! WEDS7FEB24

iven that there seems to be a new café or restaurant opening every other week around here, one of Greystones’ older dining luminaries has decided it’s time for a rebrand.

Despite having unofficially changed the sign over the door from Caffé Delle Stelle to The Bitter Lemon back in 2015, Tommaso Spennato reckons he’s finally hit on the perfect name.

“There are just too many people trying to muscle in on my business these days,” says the notoriously happy-go-lucky café proprietor as he eyes up the nearby workmen at the Pigeon House gang’s soon-come Caladh next door in Waverly House. “It wasn’t so bad with just The Happy Pear across the road, as they simply hoovered up all the yoga and dry robes hippies, but now with the likes of Caladhfradulicious, it’s all getting a little too close to home.

“I’m Italian. That means I should have first dibs on the pasta and the pizza in this town. And the wine. And the threats.”

Add to that, says Tommaso, increasingly difficult customers who “are constantly going on about how their coffee isn’t hot enough, their omelette doesn’t have enough eggs, or there’s soup on my fly“, and the man dubbed Ireland’s answer to Basil Fawlty has decided that a less caring and sharing kind of approach is needed.

“I’ve come up with the perfect name for this new approach too,” says Spennato. “One that should let people know even before they walk in through the door what they can expect.”

Apparently, the main thing you can expect is that Tommaso’s rebranded chomping ground will no longer have a menu. Not a single one.

“And that’s because I’m changing the name to Karma,” he smiles, his eyes lighting up. “And our slogan will be, ‘You get what you deserve’…”