Woodstock Café

Stumbled into this little café to escape Dublin’s downpour. I’ve never been to an establishment set up as Woodstock Café. You basically order from the bar, no wait service, kind of like a cafeteria.
Food is decent quality (went for lunch), and the amount is plentiful. You really get your bang for buck here. Coffee is deep and flavorful, too. Pastries can be soggy.
I’d recommend this little Café if you’re looking for a quick bite, because you’re in and out ASAP.

In a city slowly filling with fancy hipster cafés, Woodstock keeps it real. This place has been open for over twenty years and is an institution in Phibsborough.
You’ll find all walks of life here and it’s brilliant! They do a savage, cheap breakfast; total comfort food. You are charged by item and you also get tea/​coffee and toast with it. It’s amazing value. It’s buffet style so you tell them what you want and staff will serve you up a generous portion of each item. The food itself is simple but really hearty and high quality.
There’s a room at the back that you might not spot on first glance that’s got lots of extra seating, should you come in at a busy time.
Worth a try if you’re looking for something cheap, filling and like what your Mammy’d make ya! :)

This place does a fantastic breakfast. Nothing fancy just a really good breakfast. My favourite part is the homemade hashbrowns. They usually do good old fashioned Irish potato cakes (which are also good) but sometimes they do these lovely golden hash browns that make for the perfect hagover cure.
Breakfast here is very cheap, the price ranges from as little as € 4 to about € 10. They go by the number of items you pick out from behind the counter. They do a couple of other items that arent visible behind the counter such as buttermilk pancakes. I have yet to order them but I have high hopes considering how good everything else is.
Hopefully at some point I will get back in here so I can try their lunch and dinner menus, because if they are nearly as good as the breakfast I will be happy.

Really nice treat in the middle of Phisboro centre. Great café like feel, good food and coffees. Funky.

Lads, Woodstock is Ron seal
a little minter for brekkie a place where the beer flows like wine and the women flock like the salmon of Capastrano.
Seriously though you get served a lovely breakfast by friendly staff and only pay for what you want! If you want one sausage you’ll pay for one sausage and it’s buffet style
The clientele are locals but don’t let that put you off as a lot a Guards eat there too
Proper little gem for breakfast

Breakfast is delicious! Great service and really friendly staff!
Sandwiches, salads and dinners are also really tasty!
Great for a quick bite!

My partner and I came specifically because they advertised GF/​vegetarian. They even had a board outside proclaiming vegan/​coeliac friendly. Went inside to find the only vegetarian options were beans and eggs as all the potato products are cooked in the same oil as the meat. When asked about vegetarian options, a staff member replied «beans». Frankly ridiculous for them to advertise as veggie friendly and absolutely abysmal customer service. Try Canajun around the corner instead

Good quality wholesome food for a café with about average pricing for meals. Staff are very friendly. A nice place to grab a meal on the go!

I really love this place. I’ve only ever been here for breakfast & lunch but i’ve always thoroughly enjoyed myself.
For breakfast they have a hot counter and a cold counter. Cold counter has fruit, museli & some scones (& possibly loads more but I was more focused on the hot counter). Hot counter has sausage, bacon, black & white pudding, hash browns (which were actually sort of more like a potatoe cake), some kind of roast potatoe, beans & scrambled eggs. They will also fry you up a fresh egg if you so wish. Their breakfasts are very reasonably priced, they’re not a standard breakfast where it’s just a bit of everything & you eat what you’re given, you can chose exactly what you want and exactly how many portions of each you want & you just pay by the portion. Breakfast also includes tea or coffee (they do have soya milk which costs a not unreasonable € 0.50 extra) and toast or a farmhouse kind of brown bread (again, they offer gluten free substitutes which cost about € 0.50 more too).
It’s a long time since I’ve eaten lunch here so I will have to revisit before I write a review on that, but they also do a fantastic dinner for 2 offer including a bottle of wine for € 49 so I think that will be my next trip to this spot!

Wow, absolutely amazing is all I can say. We stumbled upon Woodstock after a failed attempt of getting food at Gravediggers. We just missed the cutoff for lunch and didn’t want to wait until 6pm for them to start dinner service again. We found this place by accident after asking the locals for a recommendation on good food options. There are so many options in Philsboro but we didn’t have internet access to check Unilocal.
Woodstock is a café/​Hofbrau that serves comfort food that I know and love. They have a very good roast pork option that has the crispy skin attached. You get several slices of thinly sliced pork with an enormous helping of vegetables and potatoes. The meat was well seasoned and tender. I was given two kinds of gravy and it worked out quite well. For about € 13.50, you will be stuffed.
The staff here are very friendly and we were given a small side of applesauce for desert. They are an ace in my book.

Friendly staff and really nice food. The breakfasts are amazing!

Never been let down by this place! If you want homely, sound food that tastes great then head here — it’s the best place to eat in Phibsboro.
Even after moving out of the area, I still return for Woodstock’s comfort food. The baked ham with roast spuds is amazing!
It has a rough and ready appearance with its uneven floor and dimly lit back room, but don’t let that dissuade you from dining in what is truly one of Dublin’s treasures.

As other reviewers have pointed out, this place is a Phibsboro institution. And, like no other café or restaurant I know, Woodstock is all things to all people. From a top-​class fry-​up that, at weekends, could equally be named the Cure Extraordinaire, to hearty traditional dinner fare (small portions available for little old ladies and tall thin girls), to sandwiches and salads, Woodstock feeds this urban village amply every day. Workers — including large numbers of prison officers and boys in blue — and locals alike frequent it, and like the portions it serves, its layout is a generous size.
It might be argued that to love Phibsboro, you’ve got to know it. It ain’t fancy. It has too many bargain shops. The property shops turned into bookies the day after the boom went bust. It’s close enough to Dublin centre to know that urban life doesn’t come problem-​free, yet isn’t glossy or urbane enough to hide its battle-​scars. In short, it’s real-​life. But for all this, Phibsboro is great spot, with a rich community of down-​to-​earth middle-​class professionals, transitory and non-​transitory renters from all walks of life, artistic types, lost souls, dreamers and students — overall, a multi-​cultural melting pot that rubs along very nicely indeed (the annual voluntary-​run Phizzfest being the ultimate showcase of the riches this community has to offer). And this is exactly what you’ll find reflected in the clientele here — and all, to a man, woman and child, are made feel not only welcome, but treasured.
This is because the staff, commandeered by the café’s lovely owner Angie, are simply wonderful. The ethos is completely customer-​centred, and they can not do enough for you. They run a tight ship, and the standard of food is consistently great. These guys have some excellent chefs working for them, and seriously top-​of-​the-​range homemade desserts, which could easily make the grade in a far more upmarket restaurant.
From Thursday to Sunday, the stone pizza oven fires up and a special weekend evening menu kicks in, offering very reasonably priced good-​quality and often locally sourced food — it’s a simple and delicious selection and creates an experience that’s a little more upmarket than its daytime feel, with waitress service and a more extensive wine list.
The only small issue, which hopefully they may iron out yet, is that, in a way, the introduction of this menu and the table-​waiting service that accompanies it, creates a small identity crisis for the café, as its regular post-​work clientele still pile in for their more canteen-​feeling hot-​counter fare, puncturing the veneer of sophistication a little if you are opting for the table-​service side of things, especially when the big guy with the tray plonks himself down on the table next to you.
As the restaurant is in two parts, back and front, it has struck me that a solution might be to make the back part the restaurant bit, retaining the front for its regular use. My guess is that making a clearer delineation will bring in more of the restaurant customers they want to attract. But it’s a small glitch in the overall scheme.
They’ve also started running music nights here a while back, around one a month on a Thursday, with table service and a lovely, low-​lit ambiance, and these seem to be gaining fair momentum locally.
The name Woodstock is synonymous with the famed 1969 music festival in Upstate New York, about which Joni Mitchell wrote the eponymous song, despite not actually making it there herself. I’m not sure why the owners chose this name — it could equally be after the Charlie Brown character. But I like to think it’s the festival, as that event, and the unforgettable song that marked it, are essentially about a celebration of community spirit. Which is not a bad summation of the Woodstock café ethos. And what better way to celebrate community spirit than eating and drinking good food in a shared, easy-​going and comforting space, whose doors are open to everyone who wants to come in, and where service comes with a big smile?

This café is quite simply one of the very best, I know of, in Dublin. I eat here a few times a week, usually in the afternoon or evening. The food is excellent, the portion sizes are generous and the staff are super efficient and friendly. The whole place is spotlessly clean and i always feel 100% confident about the quality of the food and the hygiene. The owner is constantly making improvements, always trying to find new ways of attracting customers and trying to make the place look better — there are always magnificent flowers on display, for example. The prices are incredibly reasonable with some main courses for less than 10 euro and a fantastic variety of desserts for less than 4. Coffee too is excellent. My dining companion recently ordered the cheese board and it was so impressively presented, — with a huge range of cheeses, grapes, crackers, apple slices, honey etc — that we took a photo of it. Anybody in the catering business who wants to see how to run a café really well should take a look at this place. Incidentally, i do not know the owner — have only spoken to her once, briefly, to comment on the beautiful flowers on display but I have huge admiration for how she runs this place.

Café pour prendre un vrai petit déjeuner copieux et varié à l’irlandaise. C’est la cantine de tous les vieux du quartier (qui ont d’ailleurs droit à une réduction). Le pain est bon, les scones délicieux et la diversité des plats suffisante (viandes, saucisses, légumes, charcuteries, oeufs, .). C’est simple et bon.

really nice food which is freshly cooked and you get huge portions so go there if you’re hungry! they also have a nice selection of desserts and coffees. the only down side is that the tables are too close together for private conversation but i suppose with such a popular spot what do you expect. there is a couple tables at the back if you like a bit of peace. i don’t get to go here too often sadly.

Woodstock is my favourite café for a Saturday morning fry-​up. Nothing like it and I love the street athmosphere of the place. The only thing I would have a complaint about is the prices. In the boom time prices rose and I think they could lower them a little now recession has hit.

Good value for money and owner run.
Homely Irish type kitchen (I’ve had dinner 3 or 4 times).
The only non pub /​non fastfood stop D7.

The best fried breakfast in D7, bar none — as Karina said, a Phibsboro institution.

Woodstock Café is a bit like an institution in Phibsboro. Opening every morning at 7.30am, it’s a great spot for people like taxi drivers and Guards coming off night shifts. They do a full Irish breakfast and more, which you get by going to the hot counter. I had a really nice bacon roll there some time ago and it so hit the spot. By lunchtime roasted meats, mashed potatoes, vegetables and the like have replaced the rashers and sausages and if it’s an honest to God meat and two veg type of meal you’re looking for, then it’s here you go. They also do sandwiches, salads and soup. In fact they pretty much covers all bases.
The coffee is good too and they give you marshmallows with lattes, cappuccinos and hot chocolate, although it’s not the place to go if it’s a relaxing cuppa or lunch that you’re in the mood for. Woodstock is nearly always busy and there’s a real hustle and bustle atmosphere. And if you’re planning to have your Sunday breakfast there and there happens to be a match on in Croke Park that afternoon, well you can think again! You won’t get in the door. I know this because I tried it a few months back and changed my mind when I realised there was a queue going down the street!