It's Moving Day, Here's A Last Look At 4 Chatham Street & Some Behind The Scenes Moving Action

June 28th 2023 - Our Last Day

Wednesday, June 28th, came around in the blink of an eye. Needless to say, it was a very emotional day at Corkscrew HQ. After almost 2 decades of trading from Chatham Street, this would be our last day operating from our humble abode. It wasn't going to be an easy day, emotions were already high and we had a full day's work to do before we could completely empty the shop and move all contents to 4 Harry Street ahead of opening there the next morning. Before we even opened Paul had to appear in Court, thankfully the judge succumbed to his charms and granted him a Wine & Spirit Licence for Harry Street... SPIRITS, these all had to be set up on our system so we could sell them the following day! We had our work cut out for us.

It wasn't just us who were emotional, in the 19 years and 3 months we had been on Chatham Street we cemented great relationships with customers, suppliers and our neighbours, some of who had also become quite attached to to our little shop. Throughout the course of the day many old and new faces popped in for a last look and to pass on their best wishes, we were blown away by the support and offers of help we received, and also the beautiful gift of Champagne that Ben from Liberty gave us (which never made it out of Chatham Street).

At around 11am the realisation of what had to be done impacted hard. The shop was full of wine, (these photos were taken the morning of the 28th) our spirits started arriving at Harry Street and we also had a tonne of stock in the warehouse. This was going to have to be an all-hands-on-deck situation and we would not be able to wait until close of business to start. There was an air of panic similar to April 4th 2019 when we were opening our tasting room, and as our guests were arriving up one flight of stairs, the builders were running out the other. We decided to start packing up bit by bit. Tomasz was tasked with the challenge of setting up all our new spirits on our EPOS system while everyone else ran around like blue-arsed flies and called on anyone and everyone to help, there was even some child labour involved.

The afternoon and evening were frantic. We are still amazed at the amount of stock our little shop held, and although we had packed it all up in 2020, we found things that we thought had been lost, and also a €2 coin taped in behind where our old til was that was given to us by a customer when we opened in March 2004.

Fiona, Grace (honorary employee), Jordan and Luis were busy stripping the shelves and boxing up the stock and ferrying down to Harry Street on foot, Eoin and Granville were loading, unloading and reloading van loads all afternoon, Paul & Peter were tasked with finding new homes for our stock and were assisted in putting it away by our friends from The Vineyard Wines, James and Eugene. James had driven up from Galway for this. Sevgi was on hand in the new spirit section, and Andrea and Luca from Amuri were lugging crates up and down for us too once their lunch rush died down, despite the fact they had a full house for dinner service. Even Jordan's girlfriend Marrla came in to help once she finished work. We would have had to pull an all-nighter if it hadn't been for everyone who gave us a dig out; we're truly grateful.

It's easy to forget that while all this was happening, customers were still being served. Just after 6pm, Paul served our final customer. Andrea and Luca both had dibs on this, but it was Andrea from Amuri who reigned victorious. By about 9pm, 4 Chatham Street was cleared, and in emotional scenes, Paul and Fiona carried the last crate of wine out of the shop. The "Biggest Little Wine Shop" in Dublin was no longer to be. The Corkscrew would open different doors the next morning in much larger premises and boast a selection of premium spirits, but for this to be done, crates still had to be unpacked and products put away. This could wait until after some well-earned pizza and wine though.