Widely regarded as one of the busiest, most historic and customer-centric convenience stores in the midlands, O’Brien’s Centra Mullingar came up trumps at the 2023 National Grocery Retail Awards when selected as Ireland’s Forecourt Retailer of the Year. Grocery & Retail Ireland touched base with popular owner Edel O’Brien Farrell to find out more.
In keeping with the ethos that has served the extended O’Brien Group so well over the past six decades and counting, customers come first at O’Brien’s Centra Mullingar – a bustling family-run store on the Lynn Road which invariably leads the way in service, convenience, choice and value for money.
O’Brien’s Centra Mullingar is an integral part of the local community, held in the highest regard by customers and industry peers alike. The esteem in which owner Edel O’Brien and her team at this busy and well-appointed destination store are held was very much in evidence when O’Brien’s Centra Mullingar was named as Ireland’s Forecourt Retailer of the Year at the 2023 National Grocery Retail Awards ceremony at the Radisson Blu Royal Hotel, Dublin, on Friday night, November 10th.
The prestigious Forecourt Retailer of the Year award recognises excellence through an unswerving commitment to customer care, staff development and the provision of an appropriate range of services and facilities. Specific criteria judged include a clean and well maintained forecourt and store area, welcoming and well-presented staff providing efficient service, and outstanding retail display, with particular emphasis placed on food-to-go facilities.
Victory at the most eagerly anticipated event in the Irish grocery retail calendar represented the perfect finale to a busy few days for O’Brien’s Centra Mullingar, who also excelled at the Pride of Centra Awards two days earlier, where the Lynn Road store – synonymous with brands such as Moo’d ice cream, Caramico, The Burger Buff and Frank & Honest coffee – reached the final five in the national Centra Store of the Year category while staff member Nina Fitzpatrick was nominated for Rising Star award.
“We were delighted to win the Forecourt Retailer of the Year Award and also to be shortlisted at the Pride of Centra Awards,” confirms Edel. “As an independent local business, we have worked very hard at this. We went through a number of different managers but struck it lucky when we brought in Niall Kinahan, who has vast experience working with various other retailers.
“I’m 19 years with Centra and we work well with the Musgrave Group and their various franchises, including Moo’d ice cream, Caramico pizzas and the Green Kitchen fresh food-to-go brand. We’re No.1 in all of Ireland for ice cream and we also have a large deli offering as well as our own in-store bakery, baking brown bread, scones, etc., and our own barista coffee.”
Hot dinners are available daily from 12 noon onwards, while O’Brien’s Centra Mullingar also offer a full range of retail essentials, off-licence, a full seating area inside, Circle K fuel forecourt and electric car charging facilities.
The store is open 24/7 (with a hatch service nightly from 11pm until 6am), with gainful employment generated for a wonderful team of 70. “We’re in an excellent location, with ample parking spaces, and customers can pull in at their ease,” Edel continues. “They can come in for their lunch or for a coffee and we are a popular destination store that people travel to.
“We’re very well known for our hampers and that’s a busy area for us in the run-up to Christmas every year. We have an excellent team, who can tackle anything, plenty of space, good franchises and thankfully everything is heading in the right direction.”
The genesis of O’Brien’s Centra dates back more than 60 years, to 1959, when Edel’s father Patrick O’Brien started a small business in Rochfortbridge, initially as a small shop and then extending into a a supermarket, hardware, furniture, and repairing and selling second-hand cars before taking on the Renault dealership a couple of years later. Patrick relocated that business to Mullingar in 1972 – to the site that currently houses O’Brien’s Centra.
In 2006, the founder built a modern Renault and Dacia showroom on the site before, in 2017, O’Brien Motor Group opened a second world-class showroom, which is home to the Hyundai brand. Sadly, Patrick passed away in 2014, but his sons Ciaran and JP now oversee the motor group, while Edel and Ciaran oversee the retail Supermarket business.
“The site where the store is located was the original Renault garage and workshop,” Edel confirms. “The first shop was opened in Mullingar in 1997 and was 1,000 sq ft. We opened a 2,500 sq ft store in 2004 and then, in 2018, 14 years after taking on the Centra franchise, we moved into this modern new store, which is so bright and spacious that it was used by Musgraves in a number of TV ads around that time.”
Edel had the distinction in 1978 of becoming Ireland’s youngest kidney transplant patient, receiving a life-saving kidney from her mother, Moira. The story made national headlines at the time and, when that kidney eventually failed two years ago, Edel received a second kidney, this time from her daughter Laura.
“I enjoy life, work hard and mind myself,” she notes. “You need a good manager and a good team and I’m very lucky to have those. We have fantastic staff right across the store and this National Grocery Retail Award is down to all of them and their dedication and hard work.
“Fresh food is a huge part of the store now. We also do outside catering and all our hot food is the best of the best. We’re known for food and we pride ourselves on being a local family business with the emphasis on service and looking after customers.
“Our customers mean everything to us; only for them, we wouldn’t have a business,” Edel concludes. “We appreciate their custom and we’re going to keep evolving the business to look after them as best we can, always providing the best choice, service and value.”
O’Brien’s Centra,
Lynn Road,
Mullingar,
County Westmeath.
Tel: 044 939 0183
Email: [email protected]
Facebook: www.facebook.com/ObriensCentra
First published in Grocery & Retail Ireland magazine Vol 2 No 2, Winter 2023/24
