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We caught up with Peter Murrin, co-founder of Eathos, to hear how he and his sister Lisa turned a lifelong passion for food into one of Dublin’s most loved café brands. Since opening in 2015, Eathos has grown to three locations and a busy catering business—all while staying true to its roots of great food, welcoming service, and community spirit.

Peter also shares how switching to Square’s POS system has helped streamline operations and support their continued growth.

Can you tell us the story behind Eathos? How did the restaurant come to life?

I opened the first Eathos café with my sister Lisa back in 2015. We grew up in the hospitality industry from a young age, working for our family business, but our background was mostly in events and corporate hospitality. We always wanted to open our own cafe, so we spent over a year working on the menu development. With the help of an amazing team, we were able to bring the vision to life. 

What do you think makes Eathos stand out from other restaurants in Dublin?

We always try to create a menu that represents each ingredient well, and we try to have something on the menu for everyone. Our menu is very accommodating for special dietary requirements, and whenever we are doing menu development, we always try to make sure that we can cater to all audiences.

How do you source your ingredients? Are there any special suppliers you work with to maintain the authenticity of your dishes?

We always try to source as many ingredients as possible from local Irish suppliers, but our menu has a large Mediterranean and Middle Eastern influence, so we use ingredients from all over the world. 

Has the restaurant’s approach or menu evolved over the years to adapt to customer tastes or trends?

Our menu has certainly evolved over the years as we have grown, but the core offering has always stayed the same. We have a few dishes from our menu that have been on since day 1, and we have only tweaked these slightly over the years, but personally, I like to change the menu every year slightly to keep things interesting.

We are always working on new dishes in our development kitchen, so it’s nice to play around with some ideas and change things up.

How do you manage your staff and maintain the atmosphere of a bustling yet welcoming restaurant?

We treat everyone who works for us like family. This is a culture that I grew up in, which I feel is vital to our business. It doesn’t matter what your job title is or how long you have worked with us; everyone is treated the same.

Also, there is always an opportunity for growth within the business, which has also helped us hold on to so many of our core staff over the years. 

I’m always looking for a particular vibe or personality type when I’m hiring. A good CV and skillset are important, but skills can always be taught, so I’m always looking for people who are naturally warm and friendly first. 

Do you notice any emerging trends in the Dublin restaurant scene, and how does Eathos stay ahead?

There have been plenty of trends that have popped up over our 10 years in business, but we’ve always tried to stay on our path and do our own thing. Some trends come and go, and these days social media can often make you feel pressure to stay on top of the latest trends, but I’ve always believed in just doing our own thing and focusing on our core offering.

How has the business grown since it opened? What changes have you made to support that growth?

Over the last 10 years we have grown eathos from 1 to 3 cafes and during this time we have also experienced a lot of external challenges to the hospitality industry.

We have adapted our business model slightly to better suit the current market, and we have also grown eathos catering out of this as an additional element to the cafes, which has allowed us to reach new markets.

How important is it for Eathos to build lasting relationships with your regular customers?

Regulars are the foundation of our business. Baggot St and the surrounding areas have a fantastic business and residential community, and we are absolutely delighted to be part of it.

Any time of the day, when you walk up the street, you can see that almost everyone knows each other and there is a great relationship between all the traders, which really adds to the area.

You’ve recently adopted Square’s POS platform—can you tell us why you decided to make the switch?

There were a few reasons why we made the switch from our previous till system. I had known of a few other café operators who had been using Square, and I was getting great feedback, but one of the main reasons that pushed us to move to Square was the support that we got from them throughout the whole process.

From the initial sales inquiry, onboarding and after-sales, they have been on hand to support us whenever we have run into issues or had any queries, which was something we weren’t getting previously. 

How has Square’s POS system impacted your day-to-day operations at Eathos?

The square POS system and online dashboard have seriously improved operations for me. As we now have 3 cafes and a catering business, it can be very difficult to stay on top of everything, but with the Square dashboard and live reports I have a much better oversight of the day-to-day elements of the business.

The ability to access information quickly and to compare data sets to previous weeks really helps me to make more informed decisions and manage the business better. 

Were there any specific challenges you faced with your previous system that Square has helped to address?

Square has many great features that have improved my workflow, but the one I like most is the ability to produce invoices and send out digital payments directly from the POS.

We do a lot of office catering, so to control everything from the dashboard has saved me a lot of time that I used to spend managing the accounts, raising invoices and manually following up for payments. 

What features of Square’s platform have you found most useful for managing your business?

The dashboard app is essential for me. To be able to pull out your phone and get a live oversight of all locations is very beneficial to managing the business.

Can you tell us how Square’s reporting tools help you monitor and manage your business performance?

Hospitality is facing a lot of challenges now so the ability to have live and accurate data is very important. The Square dashboard allows me to manage the POS systems remotely and to check in with each location at any time of the day so it’s particularly great when you have multiple locations to manage. 

How has Square improved the checkout experience for your customers, especially during busy times?

The checkout experience on Square is very seamless, but one of my favourite features on Square is the offline payments. As anyone who operates a café or restaurant knows, there are plenty of times when the internet goes down, only to leave you in a situation where you are unable to take credit card payments, and now that no one carries cash anymore, this can leave you in a tough situation.

With offline payment, it allows us to keep taking payments while the internet is down, which can be processed later once a connection is restored. This takes the pressure out of those moments that can otherwise be very stressful to manage. 

How has using Square helped you track sales trends and make informed business decisions?

Recently, we made a full menu change, so it was great to be able to use the item sales data to decide which items to change and which items were popular that we would do a variation of. We have quite a large menu, so it’s great to be able to access all this data in just a few clicks.

Have you noticed any cost savings or efficiencies since adopting Square’s POS system?

It has certainly improved our efficiency, both in store and from a management point of view. Squares platform has plenty of smart features built into the POS that just make the job easier.

Square has been very supportive of us since we joined up with them. They have been on hand to assist anytime we ran into issues and have provided resources immediately to help.

They feel like more of a business partner instead of just a service provider, which is what you need in an industry like this.