What if Tesco hadn't bought Quinnsworth?

Ah I never realized this, Roches in Waterford dropped the food section just a few years before the sale.

At its peak, Roches had a total of nine supermarkets: Patrick St and Wilton SC in Cork; Henry Street, Frascati SC in Blackrock, The Square and Blanchardstown SC in Dublin; Limerick; Waterford and Galway. It also had two "Home & Gifts" stores, which were in the Stephen's Green and Nutgrove SCs, neither had a supermarket. With only nine shops, it was never a major player in the grocery business, but it was probably top of the "second tier" of Irish supermarkets, along with supermarkets like L&N.

There were plenty of rumours about the future of Roches' supermarkets in the mid-90s, the speculation was that either Superquinn or Sainbury's was going to buy them. Superquinn would have been a logical match, I was in the Roches supermarkets in Cork a few times in the 90s, they definitely saw themselves more as a Superquinn equivalent than a Dunnes rival. Plus there would have been little duplication of locations, given Superquinn's lack of presence outside of Dublin (Blackrock would have been the only place where a Superquinn and a Roches competed with each other.)

In the end, it was Musgraves who took over the supermarkets, and they became "Supervalu @ Roches Stores" in 1998. Any Roches Stores that opened after the deal (Tralee, Newry) did not have a supermarket. In the years following the Musgraves deal, the Roches supermarkets started to close. IIRC, the supermarket in The Square was closed around the time of the Musgraves deal; Waterford went in 2001; Henry Street, Limerick and Blanchardstown closed in 2004; and the final four supermarkets closed in 2005. The Blackrock and Galway shops were sold to M&S, and a local Supervalu franchisee took over the Patrick St and Wilton SC supermarkets in Cork.

Don't think it was there too long. Quinnsworth inherited it when it took over Five Star in 1979. Once Artaine Castle opened, there probably wasn't a need for two Quinnsworths in Coolock/Artane.

Superquinn was at Northside from the start, I don't know when Dunnes moved in though.

Roches Stores, bafflingly, briefly had a pub on Liffey Street at one stage. It was primarily there as an off-licence for the supermarket but it had an actual bar. I think they managed to get the licence moved in to the actual supermarket after that.

Pre Dun Laoighare Shopping Centre being built, there was a H Williams on some of the site and they, also, owned a pub to use as the off licence for it.

This was the major bone of contention in Crumlin Shopping Centre which led to a nearly 50 year dispute - Quinnsworth was the anchor tenant but Dunnes bought out the centre from under them. So Quinnsworth / Crazy Prices / Tesco kept the largest unit, but Dunnes had 3 units - drapery/"dry" grocery, fruit/veg and frozen food, and household/toys - which later became the third off-licence in the centre!

At the time the Quinnsworth slogan was "Let's get it all together at Quinnsworth" which I'm sure wasn't coined with Crumlin in mind, but was appropriate for that location!

Dunnes are in the big former Quinnsworth / Crazy Prices / Tesco unit now and everything else is closed.

This was the Crumlin Road shopping centre of course, there was a small supermarket in Crumlin Village which I (just about) remember being called Five Star when Quinnsworth took it over. My mother still called it Liptons which it presumably was before Five Star. It was too small for Quinnsworth and didn't get much love from them before it became a SuperValu after a few years.

Having the offy in a separate unit was pretty much the norm years ago, no? until the laws were changed.

My abiding memory of my first time in a French Carrefour in the late 90s is - wow - you can just wheel your trolley down an aisle full of drink, wine, beer, even spirits! [*] and put it in your trolley along with your food and just check it out all at once! It seems strange now that I thought that that was unusual.

Late 90s / early 00s even Dunnes Cornelscourt had a separate off licence.

You had to buy food in one place, pay and leave, buy booze in the other.

A right pain.

[*] yep - and no booze burka or barrier in your way either 🙄

The one on West Street in Drogheda was originally a Quinnsworth, an electrical box beside it is still labelled Quinnsworth!

Speaking of smaller supermarkets being sold, Gerry’s Fresh Foods in Drogheda was recently sold to BWG and became a Eurospar. I’m surprised that it didn’t happen sooner.

Not for any supermarket built in my lifetime; unless they wanted the offo to open later than the shop - the Supervalu in Rowlagh has internal shutters to do this these days.

Not sure if it was actually a legal requirement ever, either.

Dunnes Cornelscourt had a dedicated off-licence last time I was in it, was on the other side of the internal corridor from the main shop. It may however have been a duplication rather than the only one.

Mill Centre Clondalkin has just celebrated its 30th anniversary - the Dunnes off licence used to be a separate unit where the Re-Turn machines are now. No access from outside the centre to it so not much scope for keeping it open late.

Thanks. My Dad and Myself were just talking about Liptons, he said they were small shops around the country. Did Five Star take their shops over at some point?

I think all shops had an off-licence. Around the early 2000s new laws were in acted to allow supermarkets sell alcohol at the checkout after years of asking for it from the supermarkets. I thought it was funny that the last government pushed for these gated alcohol sections is supermarkets basically reversing their decision.

The Boots is still there, the Roches shop is now the vacant unit next to Boots where Argos was.

edit: it seems that you had to close the store during the Sunday opening hours gap if the off-licence was inside the store. So if you wanted to have sensible Sunday opening hours, you fired the offo in to a different unit. If you didn't open Sunday, you didn't bother.

That probably explains it. When did that gap go?

Why weren't they allowed to just close off the drink aisle like they used to do on Good Friday?

Stupid bloody rule in the first place but our licensing laws have never made sense and still don't.

Looks to have been the Intoxicating Liquor Act 2000 adding "Where any business other than the sale of intoxicating liquor (in this section referred to as ‘non-licensed business’) is carried on in any premises to which an on-licence or an off-licence is attached, the opening or keeping open of the premises for the purpose of carrying on the non-licensed business shall be permitted at any time."

Prior to that it had been that you were bound to the liquor licence hours, with exceptions either always there, or added over time, to cover the Dublin/Cork Holy Hour, early morning opening (7:30) of shops, and Sundays very close to Christmas

That act also got rid of the Sunday 2-4 closing anyway; so it just allowed for the closing off the booze section for Good Friday and in mornings/night.

The current Lucan Tesco was a 3 Guys, then Tesco, then Quinnsworth, then converted to Crazy Prices because it was hideously run down, before being re-converted to Tesco. It's still a dump, I suspect some of the floor tiles were ordered by Albert Gubay himself.