![\"Since](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/4913066_17_articleinlinemobile_RUGBYU_20Ireland_20190579.jpg\" "\\"Since")
Since he retired from rugby, Earls said he has had a tough few years \u2013 and adjusting to a new routine took some time. \tPicture: Lorraine O’Sullivan<\/p>\nWhen some customers walk into a roastery in Limerick, they are often surprised to be welcomed by Keith Earls.<\/p>\n
\u201cI get people up here saying, \u2018What the hell are you doing working behind the coffee bar?\u2019 \u201cI don\u2019t mind what people think of me. I think a lot of people are surprised that I\u2019m serving coffee to them in my coffee shop, or I\u2019m delivering my coffee and my roast.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is what I do now, this is my baby. This isn\u2019t something I hand over,\u201d Earls told the Irish Examiner.<\/p>\n
The former Munster, Ireland and Lions flyer opened Eleven14 Coffee Roasters two years before retirement from his rugby career. Now, he has opened a new Espresso bar in Annacotty Business Park.<\/p>\n
His interest in coffee came from travelling around the world with rugby, particularly in Australia and New Zealand.<\/p>\n
Since he retired from rugby, Earls said he has had a tough few years \u2013 and adjusting to a new routine took some time. \tPicture: Lorraine O’Sullivan<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t really have my first coffee till I was 21 years of age. They\u2019re well known for leading in the coffee industry. I\u2019ve seen a roastery in 2012 when we were down there and I had it in the back of my head that maybe this is something that I might like to do.\u201d During lockdown, Earls pulled the trigger and started messing around with a popcorn nut roaster.<\/p>\n
Since he retired from rugby, Earls said he has had a tough few years \u2013 and adjusting to a new routine took some time.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou know, it was odd. It\u2019s been in incredibly tough, rugby is all I bloody knew growing up.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s one of my regrets that I didn\u2019t do something throughout my rugby career. Even the basics around education and around our own business. I suppose I wish I probably went and worked in a coffee roastery, maybe a day a week while I was still trying rugby rather than starting up the business,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
If there is a lesson he has learned, it\u2019s that the business world is not like the rugby scene.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the business world, I\u2019ve only found a handful of people that I can trust and the rest are all over themselves.<\/p>\n
\u201cI found dealing with people in the business world the hardest. I\u2019ve come from a place where it\u2019s all trust. Trust was a given. And now it\u2019s the complete opposite for me,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI find the nicer you are to people, the more they take advantage of you. That\u2019s has been a big learning for me.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Trust is one of the reasons why Earls decided to work with family. In his new coffee shop, he works closely with his sister, Jenny. And for him, honesty is the best policy.<\/p>\n
\u201cSome people say don\u2019t ever work with family, but we\u2019ve all have a good relationship and we can hold each other accountable. You just have to put in an honest day\u2019s work,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Earls started the business without \u201cknowing anything really about it\u201d. At first, he hired others to \u201ctry and run\u201d the business while he was still playing.<\/p>\n
No more of that for Earls, who is \u201cfairly hands on\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat way ended up being a disaster. If you\u2019re gonna start a business, you have to do your own research and bloody be there yourself, run it yourself.\u201d So far, he said it\u2019s all working out \u2013 \u201cslowly but surely\u201d.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/4913078_14_articleinlinemobile_Keith_20Earls_20Eleven_20Fourteen_20Coffee_2c_20Annacotty_20Business_.jpeg\" "\\"\\"")
<\/p>\n
In the future, he would be open to expanding the business further \u2013 on one condition.<\/p>\n
If there was the right opportunity, I\u2019m not one of these fellows who want to grow and have a million shops. I\u2019d be quite content by just having one shop,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Earls loves coffee, but he tries not to have more than three cups a day.<\/p>\n
\u201cI try to take it easy on the caffeine content if I can. You must try loads then you end up having like six a day. Then if it\u2019s like tasting, you go bloody over 10.\u201d According to him, coffee has become more popular as people \u2013 himself included \u2013 learned there is more to it than putting beans into a grinder.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a science behind it. There\u2019s the ratio behind it. It\u2019s a highly sought-after skill now, there\u2019s a lot of knowledge. People forget about the basics sometimes,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Speaking of the Limerick coffee scene, he said: \u201cAll the coffee shops and roasteries, they\u2019re all trying to bring their passion and teach people more about coffee, which is great.\u201d As the price of coffee is now \u201cridiculous\u201d, Earls makes it his mission to avoid waste while maintaining good value for his customers.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re buying green coffee at a certain price, and you roast this, you lose anything between 15 and 20% of the weight then, so you have to try and find the true value of your coffee because you have waste,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
So far, Earls is content with his new career.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I finish, I get to be home at four o\u2019clock every day. I have three young kids, so there\u2019s something lovely about that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When some customers walk into a roastery in Limerick, they are often surprised to be welcomed by Keith…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":256028,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[79,18,19,2902,17],"class_list":{"0":"post-256027","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-eire","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-insight","12":"tag-ireland"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115802678645489885","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256027","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=256027"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256027\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/256028"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=256027"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=256027"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=256027"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}