WEALTH October 17, 2026 0 Comments

How KC Peaches Defied the Odds to Become the Must-Visit Spot Every Entrepreneur Dreams Of—And What Owner Katie Cantwell Did Differently

What drives someone to trade a stable corporate gig in Seattle for the unpredictable, cutthroat world of running a food business halfway across the globe? For Katie Cantwell, it was a dream too compelling to ignore—a passion simmering for years that finally boiled over into KC Peaches, a Dublin-based food venture born from grit, vision, and a few curveballs life threw along the way. Sitting down with Katie at Peaches Brasserie on St Stephen’s Green, it strikes me how the food industry isn’t just about great ingredients or delicious menus—it’s about survival in razor-thin margins and the relentless hustle beneath the surface. Over two decades, Katie has navigated the highs and lows, from humble beginnings with just €300,000 to expanding into multiple venues and pivoting smartly when COVID flipped the whole game upside down. Her story is a masterclass in resilience, adaptation, and—most importantly—staying true to your ethos while evolving with the times. Hungry for more details on how Katie and her team turned challenges into a thriving local enterprise with a global flair? LEARN MORE

Seattle native Katie Cantwell left her corporate job over 20 years ago to act on a
lifelong ambition and set up a food business in Dublin, where KC Peaches was born. She talks to Jordan Mooney about the formidable challenges she and her business partners have faced along the way and the spinoff ventures that are proving a hit with food

“This business is so tough,” says Katie Cantwell as we sit in Peaches Brasserie on St Stephen’s Green, Dublin, chatting about her business’s 20-year anniversary.

“I don’t know whether I would have done it if I had known that, to be honest. The margins are so razor-thin, and everything has changed so rapidly, especially in the last six years. But our vision has stayed very much intact since we started and we’re providing amazing hospitality to customers every day. I think that’s what I’m proudest of when I reflect and look towards the future.”

You might be more familiar with Peaches Brasserie’s original iteration, KC Peaches, which Seattle native Cantwell opened on Pearse Street with just €300,000 alongside her business partner, Vincent Carroll, in 2006. Along with two then-silent financial partners — one of which, David Dunne, has become an active partner in recent years and taken on the role of financial director — the premises started as a café split with a central production unit.

“The first 18 months were quite difficult — I think we bit off a bit more than we could chew. Our foundation is whole foods, so we make everything in-house, and we had a really big team who were preparing so many different types of food,” Cantwell says.

“We were probably selling our products too cheaply at that point, and for a while we just needed so many transactions to get through the day. Then at around the 18-month mark, a very big client came in and signedon for daily office catering. That completely changed the businessfor us.”

Catering wasn’t the initial goal for KC Peaches, but it quickly became a huge wing of the business. As founder and managing director of the company, Cantwell primarily oversees the menus, kitchens and catering, while Carroll is director of operations. She initially had the idea while studying international business at the University of Washington in Seattle, thinking it would be a project she and her best friend — whose nickname is Peaches — could undertake in their retirement. Cantwell spent years working with Accenture out of San Francisco, eventually taking on a project that led her to London, then Dublin. She loved the city and moved here permanently in 2005, having connected with Carroll who loved her hospitality concept. It was a total change of career for Cantwell, but the idea of living her dream was a very enticing prospect.

“It was hard work after we opened in 2006, but I loved it. Then that first big catering client completely changed the business. We won that contract because our food was really, really good, and that’s really our whole ethos. I think there are some very large companies out there who dazzle clients with promises, but we just do really great food and we’re people-led — you’ll actually see me working and deal with me. I think that’s missing from a lot of companies these days,” Cantwell explains. “Catering really started to level out our business and we took on more clients. Then after five years we decided to open another location on Nassau Street in 2011, which we did with no additional funding. We did it just by putting profits back into the business.”

The new location quickly became busy and was shortly followed by outlets on Dame Street and St Stephen’s Green in 2013. With the expansion came more staff and more costs, but the KC Peaches concept of whole foods made with primarily Irish ingredients, a self-serve food buffet, good coffee, and housemade pastries proved incredibly successful. They also took on more and more catering clients until that became a significant portion of their company. This resulted in the original Pearse Street café closing so the entire unit could be converted into a central production kitchen to manage the demand.

In 2019, Cantwell and her team decided to diversify their offerings by opening Proof on Thomas Street. Focused on pizza, pasta and an enjoyable dining experience, it became popular with locals and tourists alike. A stark departure from the KC Peaches concept, Proof was a true passion project for the team. Cantwell says they opened it to fill a gap they saw in the market.

“We wanted to create somewhere that was more of an evening spot, but was still fun and anyone could visit. It meets all of our criteria as a business and it serves really good food, but most of all it’s a way we can provide really great value to our customer base. We saw a gap in fast casual dining that offered good value, so Proof was our attempt to fill that space,” she explains.

All locations were doing well and the newly opened Proof was solidifying itself within the business. Then, of course, Covid-19 hit in 2020 and completely changed everything for Cantwell.

“It was like a grenade [being] thrown in. When I look back, it was so hard that we didn’t know what was going to happen. Maybe we made decisions based on the fact that we assumed things would go back to normal. I tried to keep as many people employed as possible, but the restrictions sort of annihilated us and the business we had built up,” Cantwell says.

“So many people didn’t return to their offices, which meant that companies whose meals we had been catering for years ended up getting rid of their permanent office spaces. [This] then fundamentally changed the catering side of the businesses. It became a huge revenue differential, along with reduced footfall to our restaurants, so we had to come up with new models for catering. We are starting to gain clients back now, but we did have to pivot a bit. Now we do a lot more sandwich platters, canapés, that sort of thing.”

With a post-Covid world completely changing the corporate catering side of the business, Cantwell and her team began to reconsider the company as a whole. Opining that footfall is still down by about 15-25 per cent in Dublin city centre, she says that the business had to evolve, and quickly.

“We closed our Dame Street KC Peaches location this spring and we’re hoping to reconfigure it. I’m not sure that space was ever right for our concept — Nassau Street did really well right from the beginning, but Dame Street always struggled a bit. I think we were a bit naive in trying to wedge our concept into a space that didn’t really work for it. We ended up spending a lot of money over time trying to remodel and rejig it, but we never really saw the return on that investment,” Cantwell says. “We’re hoping to reopen it before Christmas this year with a different concept in the space. We might do another Proof or another Peaches Brasserie like we have here on St Stephen’s Green now.”

Peaches Brasserie, the revitalised version of KC Peaches, opened last May after a significant refurbishment. Offering an all-day dining experience with fire-led cooking over a Josper Grill, Peaches Brasserie is a slick new arm of Cantwell’s business, marking its 20-year anniversary by proving that the company is here to stay.

“While the Proof concept has been phenomenal for us, and I’d like to see it continue to grow, Peaches Brasserie is something I’m really proud of. You can’t go backwards in this business and for us, the owners, our own interests and the type of food we eat have evolved. This is the sort of place we wanted to visit, so we created it ourselves,” Cantwell says.

“It’s a fundamental departure from the rest of the business, but you’re getting the same great experience, with extremely good food, in a lovely environment. We’re really happy with it, but it’s all been really hard and still is. There are so many things I’d like to see changed in Dublin to help businesses like ours — we need more people able to live in the city centre, more affordable housing, and more helpful rates for hospitality businesses. I employ 110 people across the company, and we use Irish ingredients to support Irish producers. We need people to remember that when they’re spending their money with us, rather than a billion-euro company from the UK or US. Supporting local is so important, and we think people love our food. So I’m looking forward to seeing where we can go.”

For more information, visit peachesbrasserie.com and prooftrattoria.com