Meal Ticket: Thru the Green, Windy Arbour, Dublin 14

Boxpark in London is a shopping centre made entirely out of reused shipping containers. It opened in Shoreditch (of course) in 2011. This sustainable architecture movement hasn’t exactly taken over our capital’s streets, but there is one café that’s brought the idea to Dublin.

Thru the Green is a refitted shipping container parked on an unassuming section of tarmac on Dundrum Road. It’s about a 10 minutes walk from the Dundrum LUAS stop, heading back towards Milltown or a 5 minute walk from the Windy Arbour LUAS stop.

The people behind this project are Kiz, from Australia, and Jonny, from Dublin. Both wanted to be a part of the developing coffee culture in Dublin. They took inspiration from the Drive Thru coffee shops in Australia, found an old shipping container, painted it white and opened its shutters. You can drive through in your car or peddle through on your bike. You can even walk up by foot and order at the hatch. They also have a few stools outside if you want to take advantage of a sunny day and sit outside a shipping container sipping coffee.

These guys are serious about their coffee. They use Dublin roaster’s Roasted Brown beans and froth organic milk for their milky brews. They make one of my favourite coffees in Dublin. Their coffees treat the beans as champions, preserving their flavour in their brews and topping up strong shots with creamy milk.

But it’s not just about coffee. These folks care about food, too, and they bring in some of their favourite producers to help them feed the masses, artisanal drive- thru style. A cinnamon scroll and a coffee is €4 for a morning treat. Their salad combinations include courgette and carrot, and quinoa and beetroot. Their sandwiches come on thick slices of farmhouse white bread, with simple but well-balanced fillings such as thick slices of real ham and crunchy greens.

It’s marvelous to see such a clever use of space tucked away in leafy suburbia. Thru the Green have been open since January of this year. I think it’s time we saw other shipping container spaces popping up, permanently, around the city.