By Clare McCarthy

Copyright evoke

A stylish new interiors shop, Sonny’s, has opened in Rathgar, breathing new life into the old butcher’s store, which stood before it, as well as continuing the tradition of a family-run business at that address.

The shop is a dream come to life for owner Laura McKenna and her partner of six years, Tadgh, who works as a graphic designer. They live above the shop, just as the butcher who previously owned the shop did before them.

The name Sonny’s is a family name and the project of opening the interiors store has been a family effort to get the dream off the ground, with relatives helping out behind the tills during opening week.

She said:  ’Sonny’s is family name on my mom’s side. A lot of the men down the generations were called Sonny and I kind of wanted to have a bit of a family [name for the shop], like where you’d have like a McKenna & Son or a Murphy & Son. The old shop itself was called John Byrne & Sons, so it was very much family-oriented. I wanted to keep that, but maybe not as obvious so that’s where so came from.’

A Rathgar local herself, Laura had long been searching for the perfect location to open her store when she spotted that the landmark old butcher’s store was closing down.

She said: ‘The butcher himself who was here before, he was here for 80 years. He lived upstairs and it was his dad’s shop before. So the property itself is very well-known in the locality.’

Rather than modernise the space completely, Laura explained that she wanted to preserve the old charm of the shop and now uses the old butcher’s block for her window display – which Rathgar locals are ‘delighted’ to see.

She continued: ‘We wanted to keep a lot of the old charm in the shop, rather than just like rip everything out and have it all modern and new. A very good friend of mine, Aki helped with the interiors. We kept the butcher block and I have that in the window – Tony’s butcher block. A lot of the residents have been delighted to see that in the store.’

Before opening Sonny’s, Laura worked for years in fashion, from retail to working as a stylist for short films, magazine work, and editorials, but her dream was always to run her own store.

She said: ‘I think I’ve always had the eye for nice things but I wanted to be my own boss and interiors have also always been a passion. I enjoy mixing the kind of creativity and business side of things.’

Sonny’s offers a thoughtfully curated mix of ceramics, homeware, and textiles pieces that Laura has been looking out for over the years, many of them exclusive to Ireland.

Laura said: ‘For the stock, I wanted to bring in, some brands that aren’t in Dublin yet, so I wanted the range to feel a bit new. We’ve brought in some bits from Belgium, the Netherlands, we have gorgeous ceramics that are hand thrown and dipped from the south of France – a brand called Jars.

‘We also have these amazing lipstick mirrors, which I sourced from Italy. They are a reproduction from the 1970s – this Italian designer years ago. I’ve always loved the look of the mirrors, so when I found someone who was reproducing them, I thought, “Amazing”. They’re not actually available anywhere else in Ireland or the UK so it’s quite cool to have in store. We’ve been getting a lot of compliments on them.

‘Another brand that we have, Pallas, which is a lot of our soft furnishings, they’re a one-hundred percent sustainable luxury brand, which is quite important to us as well. But the quality of the materials craftsmanship is incredible.’

Prices in store range from €10 to €100, with bigger investment-piece items priced up to around €400.

Sonny’s, at 99c Rathgar Road is open from 10am to 6pm, Wednesday to Sunday, with an online shop launching before Christmas.