The story
The Bewley family were Quakers who originated in Cumberland and moved to Ireland in the 17th century. They entered the tea trade, and in 1835, Samuel Bewley and his son Charles landed 2,099 chests of tea shipped from Canton in China. The Bewley family subsequently expanded into the coffee trade and in the late 19th century, they opened cafes in South Great George's Street in 1894, and Westmoreland Street in 1896. The flagship Grafton Street café was opened by Ernest Bewley in 1927. The Grafton Street building had once housed Whyte's Academy, a school whose pupils included the Duke of Wellington and Robert Emmet.
In 1986 the company was taken over by Campbell Catering forming the Campbell Bewley Group. By 1999, the company operated more than twenty cafes in Ireland and six overseas. In 2010 they employed around 800 people worldwide, although 140 jobs were lost in early 2015 with the temporary closure of the Bewley's Oriental Café on Grafton Street in Dublin. In May 2018, Bewley's launched 100% recyclable cups.
From Wikipedia’s article on Bewley's, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.5