Casey’s Londis thrilled with students’ return

Staff at Casey’s Londis in Galway are preparing to welcome back a small army of student customers for the first time since the start of the pandemic – and they could not be happier.

It’s been three years since student customers were shopping in Caseys Londis Galway – and at last they’re starting to trickle back in.

Located between the G Hotel and the Connacht Hotel and a stone’s throw from the GMIT campus in Galway, the popular C-store suffered more than most of its stablemates in the Casey Londis group when Covid restrictions were put in place.

But with the loosening of hospitality restrictions last year and the return of the GMIT students this autumn, staff at the Dublin Road store are at last celebrating a return to normality and looking to brighter times ahead.

“The students are starting to drift in in small numbers and I’m told the college will be nearly back to full strength by the end of the month. I will be glad to see them and it is something to look forward to,” managing director David Tarrant says.

“Galway is a great city for Christmas – there are great Christmas markets and if you’ve got a full vibrant city, full tourism and all the students are back, I think it could be a bumper Christmas, hopefully.”
Casey’s Londis Galway is the only one of the five Casey’s stores not to have a forecourt, situated 1.6km from the city centre in the bottom floor of a block of apartments.

The other major difference is that it features both street level and underground parking, but apart from that, it is a similar layout to the forecourt stores.

“Everything we do in store is based around our foodservice offer,” David says.

“We have Four Star Pizza, we have Chopped, we have Kitchen@Caseys which is our hot food option, and we have Londis Deli.

“So, when you walk into the store, everything on the left is foodservice – it’s all counters – and everything on the right is grocery, alcohol and checkouts, and then in the middle we have fridges with grab-and-go, so it’s sandwiches, salads, ready meals, all produced by ourselves.”

Read more in the latest edition of Ireland’s Forecourt Retailer.