Two chefs, one old building, a lot of time.

Waterlilies started with a phone call, a year of rebuilding a shop by hand, and a simple idea: bake honest bread for a town that did not have it yet, and make a room where people feel like people.

01Why Carlow

Make the thing that is missing.

When Cian Waters and Dave Seitz went looking for somewhere to open, they looked at Dublin and they looked at Carlow. Carlow won quickly. As Cian puts it: "We wanted to offer something that a community didn't have, rather than doing it in a place where we were naturally competing."

There was no sourdough bakery in town making bread, pastry and coffee to the standard they had in mind. So they decided to build one. Opening in Carlow also gave them room to breathe: they were not under pressure to open overnight, which meant they could follow through on the vision for the building and for the food.

They took on 133 Tullow Street during lockdown and renovated it themselves with one builder, working on it for close to a full year. Waterlilies opened in February 2022, and a second café followed on Market Square in Tullow in 2023.

02The name

Waters plus Lily equals Waterlilies

Waters is Cian's surname. Lily is Dave's nickname. Turn it around and you have Lily Waters, Cian's grandmother, whose cooking he remembers fondly.

03How we got here

From fine dining to Tullow Street.

Before
Two chefs, one friendship
Cian and Dave became friends at university, and later worked together in busy professional kitchens.
The years away
Fires in the mountains of Nepal
Worn down by the pressure of restaurant kitchens, Cian left the industry and spent several years living in the mountains of Nepal, cooking over fires with very little electricity.
The pandemic
The phone call
Back in Ireland and staying with his parents, Cian was not sure he would cook professionally again. Then Dave rang and asked if he wanted to open a bakery. He said okay.
2021
A year with our sleeves rolled up
They weighed up Dublin and Carlow and chose Carlow, a town with no sourdough bakery of the kind they had in mind. Through lockdown they rebuilt 133 Tullow Street themselves, with one builder, for almost a full year.
February 2022
Doors open on Tullow Street
Waterlilies opened with sourdough, pastry and coffee to the standard they wanted to make, and Carlow took to it quickly.
2023
A second home in Tullow
A neighbourhood café opened on Market Square in Tullow, with the same bread, the same pastry and the same idea of what a café should feel like.
Now
Seven days, and some evenings
Both shops open every day of the week. Some nights the lights stay on for wine, vinyl, live music and workshops, and Cian also runs an organic tea company sourcing direct from farms.

04The founders

Cian and Dave.

Chefs first, old friends always, and the two people behind both cafés.

Co-founder, baker

Cian Waters

Cian cooked in busy fine dining kitchens until the pressure of professional cooking wore him down. He stepped away completely and spent several years in the mountains of Nepal, cooking over fires and living with little electricity.

He brought something of that back with him: a slower way of working, and a belief that food is about connection. Today he spends seven days a week in the bakery, works with carefully sourced flours, and runs an organic tea company on the side, buying single-origin teas and blends directly from farms.

"I tried to hold on to that peace and connection to nature, and to proper human connection, that I'd found out there and bring that into a café."

Co-founder

Dave Seitz

Dave is a chef, an old friend of Cian's from university and a former colleague from their kitchen days. He is also the reason Waterlilies exists: while Cian was back in Ireland and unsure about cooking again, it was Dave who picked up the phone with the idea of opening a bakery together.

He is also the "Lily" in the name. It started as a nickname. Now it is over the door.

"Then Dave rang and asked if I wanted to open a bakery, and I said okay." Cian, on how it started

05What we care about

Honest food, real people.

Time

"The most important ingredient in bread, without being too cliché, is time."Slow fermentation, real leaven, no shortcuts. It is the reason the bread tastes the way it does.

Honesty

"Trying to do things as honestly as we can."Organic, seasonal ingredients, carefully sourced flour, and food made from scratch in our own kitchen.

People

"People do matter and they shouldn't feel like a cog in a wheel."An open, easy atmosphere where we talk to you like a neighbour. Dogs welcome, laptops welcome, everyone welcome.

Community

"Carlow is great and has so much potential to be something beyond that."We built this in Carlow on purpose. Wine nights, gigs, workshops and collaborations with local producers are all part of it.

06Where it comes from