Crazy Prices

xzanti

I was passing the now Whitewater Centre in Finglas the other day and memories of the old Crazy Prices flooded my mind. My mother used to haul me and my older sister out there every week to do her shopping.. There was a free shuttle bus that would take us there from Blanchardstown and then we would visit our relatives in Glasnevin...

Was this a chain store or was it just one? I can only remember this one shop.. Anyone else remember this place? I think the shopping centre itself was called Jannell or something..

Also, I might be loosing my mind but didn't they have a DJ booth in one of the isles?? There used to be a DJ there on the busy shopping days banging out Whitney Houston 'I'm Every Woman' and other power ballads for the oul wans

Boom_Bap

This was a chain as far as i remember. I think there was one in Kilbarrack as well that i got dragged to.
Didnt they used to have animatronic apes and monkeys in the fruit & veg section?

Crazy prices and Crazy Prices was thier slogan!

tk123

The was a super crazy prices in Janell (now Clearwater) and one in Omni too - the one in Omni had monkeys etc hanging out of the ceiling and a DJ booth lol.

xzanti

tk123 wrote: »

The was a super crazy prices in Janell (now Clearwater) and one in Omni too - the one in Omni had monkeys etc hanging out of the ceiling and a DJ booth lol.

Oh yeah, I remember the monkeys now alright, ah memories and they sold the Thrift brand, remember that? they had a whole range all in black and white packaging.. I remember I used to get the crisps with my lunch and I'd be mortified taking them out of my bag :P

mandz

Did Crazy Prices take over the Quinnsworth chain? I could be remembering something completely different though

the_syco

mandz wrote: »

Did Crazy Prices take over the Quinnsworth chain? I could be remembering something completely different though

Yup. Then it became something else, then something else, then the shops became Tesco's.

lord lucan

xzanti wrote: »

Oh yeah, I remember the monkeys now alright, ah memories and they sold the Thrift brand, remember that? they had a whole range all in black and white packaging.. I remember I used to get the crisps with my lunch and I'd be mortified taking them out of my bag :P

Superquinn done the thrift range,crazy prices/quinnsworth done the yellow pack range.

How Soon Is Now

There was one in the square talla as well. Can remember it as a kid going shopping with me ma and younger brother. Was such a class place to shop zoo animals all over place all mad music used to love it lol.

Theres like no atmosphere in tesco s in square plenty of monkeys though

gidget

They had a Crazy Prices in Ballyfermot too. That's now become a Tesco. Can't remember but was there a Crazy Prices in Rathfarnham before that too became a Tesco - The shopping centre where we used to get the school books?

Ruu_Old

I remember the ginger snaps from Quinnsworth in the yellow packaging for some odd reason.

admiralofthefleet

Boom_Bap wrote: »

This was a chain as far as i remember. I think there was one in Kilbarrack as well that i got dragged to.
Didnt they used to have animatronic apes and monkeys in the fruit & veg section?

Crazy prices and Crazy Prices was thier slogan!

i remember they had the big walk in freezer, and kvi brand and yellow pack

Fuzzy Clam

Also were in Dundrum and Ballybrack. The 'Brack shop was 3 Guys way before that. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Gubay

Possibly the original 'stack it high and sell it cheap' shop.

Now who remembers them?

PirateShampoo

They also had a branch in Crumlin Shopping Center, used to buy cheap fish there and use it for bait.

lord lucan

Fuzzy Clam wrote: »

Also were in Dundrum and Ballybrack. The 'Brack shop was 3 Guys way before that. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Gubay

Possibly the original 'stack it high and sell it cheap' shop.

Now who remembers them?

The crazy prices(now tesco) in lucan was previously a Gubays and 3 guys. I remember it as 3 Guys but Gubays was before i can remember.

icdg

lord lucan wrote: »

The crazy prices(now tesco) in lucan was previously a Gubays and 3 guys. I remember it as 3 Guys but Gubays was before i can remember.

Lucan opened as 3 Guys, since it has been Tesco, then Quinnsworth, then Crazy Prices, then back to Tesco. That shop has been through more extensions and refits over the years than I can care to remember and was originally a lot smaller than it is now.

As for Crazy Prices, it was the budget brand of Power Supermarkets Limited -the company more commonly known as Quinnsworth, which was owned at the time by Galen Weston's Associated British Foods plc (who also own Primark/Penneys). Crazy Prices' philosophy was "pile em high and sell em cheap" (with a particular emphasis on the pilling them high, the shelves in Crazy Prices stores often went up to the ceiling...)

Known for crazy-maze like store layouts that forced you to go through in a particular direction (unlike Tesco where you can go down the aisles in whatever order you like), Crazy Night (Wednesday night opening until 9pm at a time when most supermarkets closed at 6pm), when a guy would walk around the store announcing "live" price cuts (that supposedly got crazier the nearer to 9pm you got), CPFM radio stations in some stores (Tallaght in particular) and other wierdness to attract youj to the store. KVI Brand was the own brand (though you'd occassionally see the main chain's Yellow Pack products). Premium Choice was introduced in the last years by which time some of the boundary between Crazy Prices and Quinnsworth had broke down and Maurice Pratt started to mention Crazy Prices on Quinnsworth ads too.

After Tesco took over in 1997, the chain was relegated to a small logo at the bottom of Tesco adverts and by 2001-2002 or so, Crazy Prices was no more.

Worth nothing as well for our Northern readers, the ABF supermarket chain in Northern Ireland, Stewarts, also used Crazy Prices as its discount brand, though it had a different logo and was not really attached to the Crazy Prices chain in the Republic, despite being under the same ownership.

Monkey61

I used to love Crazy Prices as a kid. We didn't have one anywhere near us but used to go to the one in The Square the odd time. It was so dingy and warehouse like. Most stuff still sitting on wooden pallets on the floor or still in cardboard boxes. And the lighting always seemed bizarrely dim as well - probably because the products were stacked up to the ceiling.

I remember going around Halloween once and the decorations were amazing (or so my childish self thought anyway).

stone roses

lol ya we use to tavel in me das nissan cherry from crumlin all the way to ballymun CRAZY PRICES to get supercans!!!!!! :-)

DublinWriter

Wasn't the one in Kilbarack previously called 'Goubays' or something like that?

Remember their 'Half-price hooter' promotion? (probably abandoned due to health & safety considerations).

...and remember crazy prices...at crazy prices!

lord lucan

icdg wrote: »

Lucan opened as 3 Guys, since it has been Tesco, then Quinnsworth, then Crazy Prices, then back to Tesco. That shop has been through more extensions and refits over the years than I can care to remember and was originally a lot smaller than it is now.

I remember in Lucan that the managers office was like a portacabin in the air,had to be reached by a flight of stairs. They used to have a huge shelf behind the checkouts where you had to pack your own bags once you'd paid,no bag packers back then!!

SoupyNorman

Boom_Bap wrote: »

This was a chain as far as i remember. I think there was one in Kilbarrack as well that i got dragged to.
Didnt they used to have animatronic apes and monkeys in the fruit & veg section?

Crazy prices and Crazy Prices was thier slogan!

Haaaaaa, the mechanical animals....got serious memories flooding back there!!

Wasnt the Crazy Prices in Finglas in the Janelle shopping centre, I remember going shopping there as a kid when we didnt have a car...I feel so bad for my parents having to drag 3kids and all the shopping on the bus.

rubadub

Boom_Bap wrote: »

Crazy prices and Crazy Prices was thier slogan!

All I remember was "Thats Craaazzzzzy Prices at Super Crazy Prices, Don't you miss it".
Not sure if the shop did change name to super crazy prices. The poor staff had to call out that slogan over the PA system.

xzanti wrote: »

the Thrift brand, remember that? they had a whole range all in black and white packaging.. I remember I used to get the crisps with my lunch and I'd be mortified taking them out of my bag :P

Thrift was superquinn as mentioned, they looked horrendous and I never knew what that "thrift" had a meaning. KVI came later than yellow pack but was there side by side. Dunno what it stood for, I think I heard "keen value item" or something.

Fuzzy Clam wrote: »

Also were in Dundrum and Ballybrack. The 'Brack shop was 3 Guys way before that. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Gubay

Now who remembers them?

My father still calls tescos in ballybrack "gubays", but I think its just to wind us up.

DublinWriter wrote: »

Remember their 'Half-price hooter' promotion? (probably abandoned due to health & safety considerations).

Ballybrack shopping centre became "Giant" for a while, very few remember it since it was so brief, I think it was them who had the hooter, I remember women would have 2 trolleys sparsely full with all their kids standing around it "on their marks", they really slowed down the checkouts since they would spend ages taking out items one by one to prolong their checkout time. This was to prolong their chance of getting the half price siren. Once it blasted the kids would all leg it off with shopping lists and come back and load the trolleys up!

I remember feeding old glass bottles into a recycling machine in dunnes cournelscourt. And H Williams used to be around too, everybody had H Williams footballs.

mikedublin

I remember there was a big Crazy Prices half way up Dundrum Hill. I think the exact location is now the carpark of Dundrum Town Centre. When I was a kid back in the late 70's and early 80's going to a big shop like that was like a trip to America - everything was so exotic and foreign (pasta sauce !)

tk123

rubadub wrote: »

And H Williams used to be around too, everybody had H Williams footballs.

And Colly Dollies My nana used to call it 'Willos' :pac:

R.Shackleford

i found an old crazy prices bag in my shed! goood times!

ghost_ie

gidget wrote: »

They had a Crazy Prices in Ballyfermot too. That's now become a Tesco. Can't remember but was there a Crazy Prices in Rathfarnham before that too became a Tesco - The shopping centre where we used to get the school books?

I remember the Crazy Prices in Ballyfermot well. A huge, cold building that the other half, daughter and I used to go to every Thursday. I always hated it

Motley Crue

I remember Crazy Prices because of the huge banners and slogans they used to put up and they had this guy (who looked better suited to a DIY store if I remember correctly) with a speech bubble...I remember the signs were huge - I used to go shopping in the one in Crumlin Shopping Centre in Dublin

I also remember this for the Barcode Buster, some video game system you could collect points in order to get and that involved playing games with old receipts...times truly were simpler:D

No wait, it was the Barcode Battler
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barcode_Battler

Corsendonk

angerfist2009 wrote: »

There was one in the square talla as well. Can remember it as a kid going shopping with me ma and younger brother. Was such a class place to shop zoo animals all over place all mad music used to love it lol.

Theres like no atmosphere in tesco s in square plenty of monkeys though

They use to have plastic penguins which ended up giving to Dublin Zoo later because the penguins in the zoo started dying off and they needed something to fill out the incloser.

Crazy prices use to have everything up on wracks piled up high to the roof, I remember one of the lads that worked in the Crazy Prices in the Square telling me how he found a customer knocked out in a aisle when a box fell down:D

The Mulk

Do you remember 'Bottler's Popcorn'. about 13p a packet. Based on the Brendan Grace character. We used to by that and some manky soft drink in the one in the Square and try to sneak them into the UCI to save a few bob.;)
Was Maurice Pratt involved with Crazy Prices?

Corsendonk

Yes Maurice was the front man for them. Quinnsworth and Crazy Prices were all part of Associated British Foods. Crazy Prices were the pile it High and sell it cheap arm of the company. If I remember correctly Wednesday Night Specials were the granny favourite, they would kill each other for the latest bargains. They would bring in pallets of anything that was going cheap, drop it on the floor and announce it on the tannoy and it be gone in mins. Lifestyle sports also started as part of the company. Up North ABF had Stewarts and also had Crazy Prices stores too.

I think the group started off as Pat Quinn then he sold out to Power Supermarkets who had took over H Williams stores(Ballyfermot was one) who had bought out Albert Gubuy stores before they went bankrupt in 1986.

ghost_ie

ghost_ie wrote: »

I remember the Crazy Prices in Ballyfermot well. A huge, cold building that the other half, daughter and I used to go to every Thursday. I always hated it

As do I, having lived there as a child. Used to be a Quinnsworth, which I barely remember, and a Tesco before that, which I only knew because some trollies still had Tesco logos on them.

I moved to Kerry afterwards and my history teacher in 2nd year mentioned Quinnsworth and Crazy Prices. She told the class that Quinnsworth was in the more upper class areas while Crazy Prices was in the more rough areas. She was probably somewhat right but needless to say I was quite offended by it.

RichieC

First time I ever had Pizza was from Crazy Prices... make your own style... as far as I'm concerned they were invented that year.

Sgt Hartman

I remember Crazy Prices in Roxboro shopping centre in Limerick back in the late 80's and 90's. Wednesday night was Crazy night and Thurday night was Party night. On Party Night they would have guys dressed up in animal costumes giving out prizes.

Roxboro Crazy Prices also had a bus for it's customers, dropping them off in Southill and the other surrounding areas. A neighbour of mine accidentaly spilled a bucket of paint all over the floor of the bus once and it was discontinued shortly afterwards.

Thomas828

There was a branch of Crazy Prices off Arthur Street in Belfast. My clearest memory of it is from the early 80s, me and my Granny lugging a ton of shopping home on a Saturday afternoon.

Now that area is buried underneath the Victoria centre.

davidmdickens

I used to work in Crazy Prices in the Square.
It was the best job I ever had. we had a full time DJ in the shop.
Wednesday was a mad night.

Degsy

There was a "4 guys" in Killbarrack in the early 1980's and i remember them doin a pensioners night or something similar...basically all coffin-dodgers got a tin of "Romance" biscuits with every visit.

This arrangement was of course open to abuse with the same people going back and forth to diffrent checkouts multiple times to scab thier free tin of biscuits..from what i remember everybody's granny had piles of these things sitting round the house for years afterwards.

AnalogueKid

I worked at the Crazy Prices in Dundrum / Sandyford area back in the early 90´s - I think that land bacame annexed by the Dundrum centre eventually. We used to call it "Crazy Wages". They renamed it Super Crazy Prices. Maurice Pratt had something to do with it alright. It was like the ugly, flatulent, junkie half-brother of Quinnsworth.

I remember a real snobby bint neighbour of mine was mortified when I said "Ah hi there Mrs. xxxx". It was Wednesday night specials and she had her Superquinn plastic bags with her.

L1011

The old Dundrum Shopping Centre is still there actually - it was completely empty/derelict but they've re-let the ground floor units. So assuming it was the unit there, its currently a Lidl.

zagmund

Nope, H. Williams in Dundrum was up the road to Sandyford, out in a site by itself. It was opposite to the entrance to the Pye factory. Or was it just called Pye lands ? As far as I know it's underneath the surface car park about as far away as you can get from the old Dundrum Shopping Centre.

Here's a link to some 1995 imaging which shows the site of H. Williams in Dundrum - http://maps.osi.ie/publicviewer/#V1,717328,727608,7,5 - if you click on "Street map" on the right you can see it's right under the car park as described.

If you go back to the 6" & 25" maps you can see how the course of the poor old river which is supposed to flow under the centre has been changed. This goes a long way to explaining the flooding they had there a while back - the river was returning to its old course.

z

p.s. and can I just say that I have a major aversion to calling a shopping centre a "town centre", especially when Dundrum has/had a perfectly good town centre before this all started.

NaasPreacher

xzanti wrote: »

I was passing the now Whitewater Centre in Finglas the other day and memories of the old Crazy Prices flooded my mind. My mother used to haul me and my older sister out there every week to do her shopping.. There was a free shuttle bus that would take us there from Blanchardstown and then we would visit our relatives in Glasnevin...

Was this a chain store or was it just one? I can only remember this one shop.. Anyone else remember this place? I think the shopping centre itself was called Jannell or something..

Also, I might be loosing my mind but didn't they have a DJ booth in one of the isles?? There used to be a DJ there on the busy shopping days banging out Whitney Houston 'I'm Every Woman' and other power ballads for the oul wans

Crazy Prices in The Square was our first grocery shopping experience when we moved here from America in 1995. Can you imagine what we newly arrives Yanks thought about this Irish shopping experience :-) ?

Slunk

I remember crazy prices in Janelle finglas. Mother used to bring us down once a week for the shop on the shuttle bus. Think it was 20p on the bus or free if you were going to crazy prices. Dad used to collect us then with all the shopping. I always remember lying on the opposite side of the little hills at the entrance peering over looking for my dads car.
Janelle had dunkin donuts,sportsmith a pool hall and a two screen Kip of a cinema. Great back in the day

xzanti

Slunk wrote: »

I remember crazy prices in Janelle finglas. Mother used to bring us down once a week for the shop on the shuttle bus. Think it was 20p on the bus or free if you were going to crazy prices. Dad used to collect us then with all the shopping. I always remember lying on the opposite side of the little hills at the entrance peering over looking for my dads car.
Janelle had dunkin donuts,sportsmith a pool hall and a two screen Kip of a cinema. Great back in the day

That's right.. had a Poundshop just right inside the entrance.. I can still see the whole place in my minds eye there was also a discount clothes shop called Pricewise next to Crazyprices.. Mayhem is the only word for that shop!!!!! Bargain Hunting Biddies 'R' Us..

And there was a little cafe situated just at the exit to Crazyprices.. up on a little platform where all the Husbands would go to drink tea while their other halves bopped around to Whitney Houston getting the 'messages'..

Ah memories

L1011

zagmund wrote: »

Nope, H. Williams in Dundrum was up the road to Sandyford, out in a site by itself. It was opposite to the entrance to the Pye factory. Or was it just called Pye lands ? As far as I know it's underneath the surface car park about as far away as you can get from the old Dundrum Shopping Centre.
.

Who was the supermarket tenant, pre Tesco, in the old Dundrum SC? It did seem a bit small for a Crazy Prices/H Williams.

Google Streetview actually passed it while completely derelict, on checking there to see if there were any clues.

zagmund

My memory banks are fading, but there's a faint glimmer of a remnant that says it was something like 5 Star or something along those lines . . . as the original supermarket in the original Dundrum shopping centre.

z

zagmund

Googles memory banks are better than mine. It found this discussion of various old supermarket chains in Ireland - http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=1373113

According to the thread above this was Ranelagh, but I knew Ranelagh well as a kid and I can't for the life of me place this - http://www.dublincitypubliclibraries.com/image/131-five-star

It looks like it might have been taken from the triangle looking towards town, but then that should be the Chariot Inn across the road and not a supermarket.

z

bonzodog2

rubadub wrote: »

Thrift was superquinn as mentioned, they looked horrendous and I never knew what that "thrift" had a meaning. KVI came later than yellow pack but was there side by side. Dunno what it stood for, I think I heard "keen value item" or something.

IIRC it was "Keenest Value in Ireland"

I used to go to one in Limerick about 20 years ago.

mtjm

I remember Janelle finglas, went to see the first Batman movie there, went into Crazy prices before hand to get crips etc..

I remember Ben Dunne's Misses tried to open a rival store there but it failed, don't think it lasted too long

yellowtrout

My mother always did her shopping in Crazy Prices in The Square every week.
I remember the monkeys in the fruit 'n' veg section and when you were entering the fridge area there was a sign in giant letters saying THE BIG CHILL.

I also remember a gorgeous chocolate bar they used to sell called Hella's Strawberry. It was absolutely amazing and my mum always put one in the trolley for me, which I ate on the way home.
I only looked forward to shopping days to get that chocolate!

Wasn't their brand in Crazy Prices called K.V.I?
And everything was in the boxes they came in.

Ella

Ah we lived beside the kilbarrack one. Loved that shop