From lockdown lobsters to north coast legends (and the Great British Menu final): Portstewart couple mark five years...'it's been wild'

The owners of a Northern Ireland seafood restaurant and fishmongers are marking ‘a wild five years’ in business.

Rebekah and Stevie McCarry, the husband-and-wife duo behind Lir in Coleraine, first set out in 2020 with dreams of opening a seafood restaurant. Instead, the pandemic forced a dramatic rethink, and the couple launched Native, a fishmongers business delivering fresh catch door-to-door along the north coast.

“It’s been a wild 5 years since we started our business in the middle of the pandemic, starting into new territory for both of us as fish mongers rather than our intended seafood restaurant,” they recalled in a heartfelt social media post marking the milestone.

"With everyone unable to leave their homes, we delivered fresh fish straight off the boat door to door around the north coast. Starting with a few lobsters off Boy Matthew and the following week taking our first big catch out of Greencastle.

“Schools weren’t open, we took it turns to head to our newly leased old yacht club building and filleted and paper wrapped everything while the other parent kept the kids.. like ships in the night. We couldn’t believe the high demand for people desperate to try sustainably sourced wild fish.”

As restrictions eased, Native evolved. With Stevie — known online as @chef.onlyfins — steering the kitchen, the food began to take on a distinct identity...high-quality seafood served with a street food twist, designed to make fish fun, informal, and approachable.

That evolution eventually led to the opening of Lir, a permanent home for their growing brand.

“As restrictions eased we started to grow the business, by bringing in a coffee machine, offering lobsters rolls, oysters, tacos and then @chef.onlyfins fell into his groove of offering seafood dishes based on streetfood classics, in a bid to make seafood more approachable, it also suited the tiny kitchen we had at the time resembling a tiny food truck,” they posted.

"Roll on 3 years of building work, floods, pop ups in Portstewart and our mini pod we finally got the doors open to Lir. Two years into Lir and we are still winging it but feeling a lot more confident in what we are trying to achieve. We still make the multiple trips a week down to Greencastle and back, fillet everything ourselves and try to reach as close to minimum wastage as possible.”

This year brought a major career highlight: Stevie was crowned the Northern Ireland regional winner on Channel 4’s Great British Menu, earning a spot in the prestigious UK final and bringing Lir even further into the national spotlight.

With its unique blend of heart, hustle, and high-end flavours rooted in the wild Atlantic coast, Lir has become one of the most talked-about seafood spots in the region. And while the journey hasn’t been without its challenges, the couple are proud of what they’ve built — and aren’t slowing down any time soon.

"It’s always gonna be a tough job, hospitality is a tough place to work but can be just as rewarding. All we can do is try and make our time between services and shifts as enjoyable as possible for us and our team.

"I think we will always be striving for some resemblance of a work life balance but I think we have both come to accept that will never happen unless we fall out of love of what we are doing.. so hopefully never.”

The Coleraine has also recently expanded revealing their ‘new look’ back bar.