Surviving is in the blood of the Mellett family.

Their business, Mellett’s Emporium, is at the heart of the small town of Swinford in Co Mayo. The grey brick pub has served the public for 223 years – through the famine, two World Wars and past epidemics.

Since the first day the pub opened its doors, it has been completely family-owned. The reins are currently being transferred to Marie Mellett, the seventh generation of the family.

Lately, Mellett and her father have been talking about the topic of resilience and near-misses, which has brought up some old memories.

“My great, great granddad, Joseph Mellett, was booked to go to America twice. Both on the RMS Leinster and the Lusitania, and both of them were sunk by German U-boats during the war,” says Mellett.

“Both times that he was just about to get on the boat, he received a telegram to come back to Swinford. I’m not too sure why, someone had passed away or something like that. He survived death twice,” she adds.

Throughout the years, the pub has been more than just a place to get a pint. The snug was notoriously known for matchmaking and you could once organise your funeral there. They still have a coffin in storage.

“The snug and the matchmaking is gone, thank God. I think Tinder has taken over,” says Mellett.

In the early 1900s, you could even arrange to catch a boat from Ireland to America from the pub. This draws many American tourists to Swinford, looking to trace their heritage.

“Their ancestors would have come to my grandad to book their passage to America. Back then it was all done by paper. So, they would come to granddad and he’d have to write to Cork and wait for the office in Cork to write back to him to organise passage for people to leave the country,” says Mellett. She adds that her family still have all the paper records for these voyages.

“It can be a nightmare sometimes because you don’t really have time. It could be in the middle of a Saturday night and someone comes in and says, ‘Oh my God, my great, great grandfather came from here.’ I would say, ‘Oh God, I’m not going through the records now.’ But we try to accommodate people as much as we can,” says Mellett.

“Our suppliers have been so good to us, but the day we open is the day that they’re going to come looking for their money.”

Marie Mellett

Mellett’s memory of growing up in the pub is one of happiness. “I know that sounds very basic but the pub was just always full of laughter.”

“That’s what drew me to come back and drop my life after university and travelling the world,” says Mellett, who was away from home for seven years before returning. She has been working there full-time since 2011 but has been pulling pints since 1995.

Good times aside, the importance of running a “tight ship” is instilled in the family and no doubt contributed to its longevity.

“My grandad would be known as a ‘thick man’ and Dad would be thick enough. So, from that point of view we’d rarely have any trouble in the pub,” says Mellett.

Now, the resilience of Mellett’s Emporium faces its biggest challenge to date – Covid-19. Mellett’s pub has been closed for four months due to the lockdown to stop the spread of the virus. The quiet, barren pub is a reality far from the fond memories Mellett and her family have of the place.

In her lifetime, the pub closed for two days when her grandad died and two days when her grandmother died. When Joseph Mellett died, the pub was closed for a full week. This was the longest period of time the pub had ever been closed to punters. Until now.

“Apart from that, the pub has never ever been closed,” says Mellett.

Although having an empty pub is not familiar territory for Mellett, she is not sure opening with social distancing still in place is the right move.

As part of the government’s ‘road map’ plan to re-open the economy, most establishments in the hospitality industry were allowed to open once more on June 28, including hotels and restaurants. Following lobbying by the Licensed Vintners’ Association (LVA) and the Vintners’ Federation of Ireland (VFI), pubs serving food and operating as restaurants with table service reopened on the same date, while drinking-only pubs must wait until August 10. They were originally earmarked to reopen on July 20 as part of Phase 4 of the plan, but the National Public Health Emergency Team (NPHET) advised this phase be delayed due to concerns around and infection spoke of Covid-19.

“The public health restrictions will present real challenges to all hospitality venues, it doesn’t matter if they are a pub, a restaurant, a café or a hotel. There is no denying that and there is no getting around it.  Addressing those public health requirements will be necessary for all hospitality businesses whenever they reopen. Pubs across Ireland are up to that challenge and will do what is required for maintaining a safe and healthy place of business,” says Padraig Cribben, Chief Executive of the VFI, at an earlier stage of the lockdown.

Mellett was not sure if her pub will benefit from opening early with social distancing enforced.

“I really don’t know. It goes against everything the pub is about. Our appeal is about packing into the pub,” says Mellett when asked whether she thinks social distancing could work in her pub setting.

“We have a couch area, and on a Sunday evening there’d be maybe 12 lads packed into that and they have the best time. I was looking at it and if we have to maintain two meters, you’d fit two people in that. Why would those guys bother coming out,” says Mellett.

Putting these measures in place could also be a wasted effort, according to Mellett.

“I don’t know if the customers will be bothered coming out and that’s my biggest worry,” she says.

Since speaking to The Currency, the social distancing required in the hospitality industry has been reduced from two metres to one metre after much debate on the issue, with many health professionals maintaining that the two metres rule is still the safest option to prevent infection. Despite introducing the one metre rule, it will still create capacity problems with capacity for businesses.

Mellett adds that pubs are still looking for clarity around other elements of reopening. For example, can a customer claim if they get Covid-19 on a publican’s premises and will government support be given for redundancies.

Mellett will also have to come to embrace challenges such as table reservations, which, for a small local pub with many elderly customers, will be more difficult that it seems.

“I did a survey of our customers and 95 per cent are in favour of having to reserve a table. However, we won’t be able to use an online booking system and I think a lot of rural and local pubs will be the same,” says Mellett.

“Say 75-year-old Michael comes in who’s a customer for 55 years. He can have any table he wants. I know that if 50-year-old Tom wants a seat they’d be happy to share, but if his neighbour John comes in he absolutely will not sit with him. It’s almost going to be like matchmaking all over again, and all done through my personal phone and not online because I literally know every single customer and what makes them happy. It’s going to be a challenge, albeit a fun one,” she adds.

*****

Mellett is not convinced that opening the pub early will help financially either.

“I feel for the staff because if we do have to open we won’t be making any money if we’re operating at 30 per cent capacity,” she says. Her pub currently employees five bar staff and she was also looking for one more person to join her team on a part-time basis.

Once the pub opens for business again, Mellett will immediately need to pay her suppliers, which could add to an already stressful situation.

“Our suppliers have been so good to us but the day we open is the day that they’re going to come looking for their money. We literally don’t have any money and I don’t know where that money is going to come from,” says Mellett.

“So it might be a case that we open and I’ll have to work the seven days, which I don’t mind, but it’s just sad for our staff if we can’t take them back on,” says Mellett.

Changing times

Mellett isn’t afraid of change, though, and knows that her business must evolve to stay current.

“We were really excited for the future. We have so many plans. Like the bathrooms need to be renovated and I’d love to tear them out now and do it. It would be the ideal time but we’ve no workmen and we’ve no money. You just couldn’t justify spending money on that right now,” says Mellett at the beginning of lockdown. Since, her business was forced to remain closed while builders could go back to work, she has recently seen the opportunity to make some renovations around the pub.

Her pub has gone through alterations before, and many believed they would be its downfall.

In the mid-80s, Mellett’s father completely revamped the premises. She says “the pub originally, like most pubs, had an old shop at the front of it,” where you could buy your groceries. Her father took it out, as well as the matchmaking snug.

The Mellett family has a dominant presence in Swinford. Not only do they own the pub but also an auctioneer’s which is located right beside it. The family also owned a newsagent right beside the other side of the pub which was forced to close during lockdown.

“We are all heartbroken,” she says about the closure.

The newsagent traded for 35 years “but as a small shop, it’s no longer viable,” says Mellett.

“This was the final straw. If I win the lotto I’ll turn it into a gourmet deli and maybe even a tapas restaurant if Swinford is ready for it,” she says.

“When I was thinking about how things could change drastically for us, he [Mellett’s father] said to me that in the 1980s, when he took the shop out of the pub, people thought he was mental – that it would never work and that it would be the ruining of the pub. But, actually, we’ve been thriving ever since,” says Mellett.

“You sometimes have to roll with the changes.”