Coffee ShopsThe Drury Street area of Dublin has plenty of sandwich bars and coffee shops - but nothing quite like Dunnes Stores' new convenience restaurant Taste. If successful, it's likely the retailer will open more such outlets around the country. Christine Madden reports

Dunnes Stores' new gourmet sandwich and coffee shop, Taste, which has just opened in the centre of Dublin, shows what a new gastronomic venture can look like when extensive research and planning is combined with the financial clout of a giant retailer.

Located at 13 Drury Street, around the corner from South Great George's Street and just behind Dunnes' popular, innovative convenience store, the new outlet has any number of advantages in an area already thick with sandwich and coffee bars.

The key, as indicated by head of catering Geoff Sanderson, lies in reflecting that same variety within the one shop itself. From 7.30 a.m. to 6 p.m. through the working week - and until 8 p.m. on Thursdays and slightly different times on the weekends - Taste will offer a daunting array of fare in its ultra modern retail premises.

The building, next to the underground car-park at the end of Drury Street, had been boarded up for more than 15 years.

The general expectation is that Dunnes will roll out a range of similar sandwich bars in Dublin and other cities and towns where it already trades.

The idea behind the shop is to marry a high quality product with an adventurous range of choice, and to offer this quickly and efficiently. Sanderson cites the example of the sandwich bar phenomenon in Dublin, where "a customer could end up standing in the queue up to 20 minutes" waiting for lunch.

Taste aims to offer a similar freedom of choice without the wait. The food preparation staff assembles five to six batches of sandwiches a day.

Five years of research lie behind the shop's inauguration, during which Sanderson observed food trends and inner-city customer spending habits, sourced raw ingredients, beverages, pastries and snacks. Staff entered a training programme, during which they learned, for example, how to assemble the various sandwiches according to specification from a large illustrated instruction sheet.

Most of the food on sale is prepared behind the scenes in an adjacent room which, Sanderson says, is like an enormous refrigerator. The room itself is kept at the un-ambient temperature of 15° so that the prepared food remains fresh longer - in contrast to the ingredients at sandwich bars, which remain in areas at room temperature, albeit in cooled units, for hours at a time.

Not only sandwiches but also salads, fresh fruit and jellies are made for sale upfront.

Taste offers an enormous assortment of sandwiches reflecting a combination of ingredients and breads, including wraps, as well as a fresh salad bar and a range of salads you can take to the next counter, where paninis and bagels are grilled, for personal selection of dressings and condiments.

In addition to the paninis and bagels prepared for lunchtime toasting, Taste also features "breakfast in bread", bagels and rolls filled with Dunnes Stores own bacon and sausages.

A unit with soups, stews and noodles and a selection of breads lies adjacent to this, as well as a wide selection of cakes and breakfast pastries and other snacks.

Attention to detail is aimed charming customers into repeat visits: some sandwiches, for example, come with a little side parcel of crisps. A cappuccino gets the accessory of a mini-chocolate or pudding croissant.

Sanderson is also proud of the coffee bar, which serves Bewley's coffees, and the wide variety of soft drinks, waters and juices. The broad selection, he says, serves to test the market

The entire venture, in fact, has been approached as a test, and Sanderson is keen to ensure Taste enters the market gently, without too much fanfare, so that it can smoothly learn what the customers want and adjust to their needs.

"We're aiming for the well-informed customer," says Sanderson, who believes Dubliners have become very savvy and sophisticated in their food tastes. "It will be quiet at first, but I'd sooner take it quietly and deliver the promise."