How I met my partner: Cork coffee shop owners share their brew-tiful love story 

Jarryd and Tamzyn Kotze met at home in South Africa, married young, and moved to Ireland, where they now own the popular coffee company Some Dose.

Tamzyn told The Echo: “We met in 2011, I was 19 and Jarryd had just turned 21, when he moved to the town I’d grown up in.

“We were set up: One of my closest friends and her now husband, who is one of Jarryd’s closest friends, hosted a games night and made sure we were both there. They had decided this was a match made in heaven.”

Tamzyn and Jarryd hit it off, and Jarryd said that the friends are still “very smug” over their role in it all.

After a year, Tamzyn moved to a different town, to study interior design, and they did a long-distance relationship for four years, then got married as soon as she finished studying.

Jarryd said: “We thought, if we could make it through long distance we were probably right for each other, and South Africa can be quite conservative about living together before marriage. We decided we were going to get married anyway: Why not do it now?”

Tamzyn added: “We wanted to travel when I finished studying, so we thought we’d do the wedding first.”

Jarryd had friends in Northern Ireland, but the Republic was easier to enter with their passports.

Tamzyn said: “We decided it would be a good place for us: It’s English-speaking and we had heard about Ryanair having cheap flights, so it seemed like a good base to travel from.”

From Dublin to Cork

They lived in Dublin for two years, and were considering moving back to South Africa, because Dublin was fast-paced and expensive, but they took a chance on Cork after Jarryd got offered a coffee job there.

They invested in a tuk-tuk, planning to travel around selling coffee, but Jarryd described it as “a glorified trailer and a bit of a rust bucket”. 

They started looking for a permanent base, so they didn’t have to move it, and approached Hanley’s Garden Centre after their café closed down. Four years later, they are still there.

Jarryd said: “We are on a rolling contract, until another restaurant moves in, so we decided to open another premises, in case we had to leave, and that’s when we opened the Turner’s Cross spot.”

Tamzyn, who had previously been working remotely in interior design, has joined the coffee business full time.

Last year, they opened their third location, in the Opera House, where they serve coffee in the foyer on weekday mornings, before handing the space back over to the theatre to be used as a bar at night.

Tamzyn said: “We don’t stand on each other’s toes. I’m good at admin and background stuff, while Jarryd is definitely more of a people person.”

Jarryd said: “We stick to our lanes and play to our strengths and we actually work together very well: Our staff get their roster a month in advance.

“If I was running it, they’d get it the day they were supposed to be working.

Tamzyn added: “If I was running the coffee, you wouldn’t get a coffee: I can only make an americano!”

She added: “We finally started travelling, too, and using Ryanair. The first few years were so busy and expensive.

“We love Cork and have made some great connections, met some great people: We really see ourselves living here long term.”