Battling a pandemic is a thankless job.

But Cork business owners have been rowing in to do what they can to make life a little easier for the city’s brave frontline healthcare workers, who can now pick up a meal for free at Izz Café on George’s Quay.

Opened in 2019 by Palestinian couple Izz and Eman Alkarajeh, who spent time in Direct Provision after arriving in Ireland from Saudi Arabia with their four children, the café quickly gained a reputation for serving up mouthwatering dishes such as baked spinach manousheh, labneh, babaganoush, fresh flatbreads and hummus.

It’s the kind of nutritious and delicious fuel that will keep you going all day – now they want to make sure it’s fueling frontline health workers.

Sharing the news on social media, the husband and wife team said:

“Now that we are back operating a delivery and collection service we want to offer a free menu item to any healthcare workers to collect. If you know anyone currently working in the fight against Covid-19 please tag them below.

Send us a message and we can prepare something for you. We are open from 12pm-5pm Tuesday to Saturday. We would be honoured to help feed our heroes.”

If you fancy something special for lunch or dinner this weekend, Izz Café also operates delivery through Deliveroo and JustEat and collection by phone on 021 229 0689.

Do yourself a favour and pop one of their cinnamon rolls in with your order.