Joes Cafe celebrates 100-years in Forkhill

JOE'S Cafe is celebrating 100-years of the McCreesh family businesses being at the hub of the Forkhill Community.

A cafe/ restaurant that reminds you of visiting your favourite aunty, according to it's owner John McCreesh, so you can sit back at ease and enjoy your meal seven days a week.

John McCreesh is the cafe owner, it was originally a shop but he has transformed it and as well as serving up quality tasty food, Joes Cafe also provides an outreach for many in Forkhill.

In 1924 Joe’s Grandfather opened a shop in Forkhill and eight years later he moved it down the village to Main Street, where it has remained ever since.

Back then it was a store of all kinds of everything, it was the general merchants, it sold gas, flour, coal, oil, hardware, undertakers, you name it, Post Office, the lot.

“It was the only shop in the country then,” said John.

“In the big snow in 1958 he left a lorry load of coal, flour and meal over at the Three Steps because nobody could get out and I remember it being said that there was only one bag that was never paid for.

“It was tough times, people had nothing and there was people you bought ground around the time of the war and my grandfather helped them buy it and they paid it off with eggs.

“He as good man, good for the area and good to the people and my uncle too.”

John's Granddad died in 1965 and then his uncle, Sean McCreesh, who was also a Newry and Mourne Councillor, took over the shop.

“We had the Post Office during the troubles and the worry of that being blown up and getting robbed,”John said.

“He went to Lourdes 57 years in a row. He should have had the express way upstairs after all those trips you would imagine. He started that off in the south Armagh district.”

Sadly Sean and then John's aunty passed away during the Covid years so John bought the shop and he has changed it to 44-seater cafe/ restaurant.

“We are opening two years now,” John said.

“We are open seven days a week. We do the full breakfast, we do the dinners, we do the lot.

“We done it in a unique sort of way. I want people to feel welcome and it is not that modern look and I wanted to recycle and use second hand stuff where I could. I just didn’t want the place to have 20 tables all the same.

“People do come in and say, 'OMG I feel like I am in my aunties kitchen. I feel welcome and warm and it is cosy.'

At the end of the day, we are a small village and people need to come and feel like it is a wee bit like home. Be at ease.

“We are sort of the hub of the community because there is nothing in the village any more. The community centre has moved to beside the football field and it is a good stretch over.”

Indeed, Joes Cafe holds Bingo every Monday night and on Wednesdays it is not a senior citizen menu but a Legends Menu.

“Because our mothers and grandmothers are legends to us, we do a special offer,” John said.

“Soup and sandwich and the endless tea for £5.”

They do a supervised Daddies Day through Surestart monthly and a few months ago the Cafe held a senior citizen three course Christmas dinner for 72 people and provide outside catering.

“We had our first St Patrick’s Day Festival this year and we had a great day and it got a great response, I don’t know if we had thousands but we definitely had hundreds and hundreds,” John said.

We had a great day and people are still talking about it. We have children at the youth football and some doing Irish dancing and we try to support it.

“I have the attitude that I don’t give a damn, let’s try it, it is either good or bad but if we don’t try, it is definitely bad.”

Here's to the next 100 years.