New café opens in Portlaoise this week

A NEW café restaurant will open at Dunamaise Arts Centre in Portlaoise this week, two months after The Fort café suddenly closed after only 10 weeks in business.

Roots café, which will open on Tuesday in the large ground floor space at Dunamaise, is part of a successful restaurant chain that includes the popular Roots venue at Abbeyleix Golf Club.

Run by Portlaoise residents Kreshna and Santa Rambarrun, Roots opened in Abbeyleix in February 2023 and subsequently opened further outlets in the Royal Curragh Golf Club and Newbridge Golf Club in Co Kildare.

Roots at Dunamaise is the chain’s fourth venture and the fourth restaurant to open in the arts centre since it was established in May 1999. The building on Church Street is owned by Laois Co Council and the restaurant space is leased. 

While popular first occupant Café Latte ran for 23 years, the two outlets that operated since then each lasted only a matter of months. The series of closures was a major loss to the town centre, where the theatre café has been a popular meeting place and community hub for decades.

In advance of the Roots opening on 10 November, Dunamaise Arts Centre management said: ‘We’re looking forward to the café being full of life, conversation and the smell of fresh coffee again.’ 

Roots café will serve breakfast, lunch, freshly brewed coffee, sandwiches, soups, pastries, cakes, hot meals and a children’s menu. It will open from 9am until 4pm, Monday to Saturday.

The latest restaurant will replace The Fort Café and Bistro, which closed in September after only two months in business. The short-lived venue was run by award-winning chef Sorin Olinici, who said the closure was entirely due to personal circumstances and was ‘not a reflection of the café’s performance or potential’.

When The Fort café opened in July, the restaurant space at the Dunamaise had been vacant for almost a year. It was previously occupied by family-run R32 Artisan Bakery and Coffee Shop, which opened in January 2025 but closed after only six months. 

When R32 opened the bakery café, the restaurant space at the Dunamaise had been vacant since October 2022, when the highly popular Caffe Latte closed after 23 years in business.

At the time, Caffe Latte owner Ken McPherson decided to consolidate his catering businesses, while continuing to run another successful Caffe Latte outlet in nearby Lyster Square.

The café space remained empty for more than two years until the opening of R32 in January 2025 but the revival proved short-lived, when the Hungarian family team behind the venture decided to close after only six months.