While the rest of us were making banana bread, growing interesting facial hair or making over our gardens during the first Covid lockdown, the Conway brothers were building their first convenience store at Dunman outside Cookstown.

It’s now a year since Peter, Daniel and Declan Conway opened the filling station on April 20 2021 and the business is going from strength to strength.

The brothers have a background in building and renovating property as well as the family business in amusement arcades, so retail was quite a jump, as Peter explains.

Taking the plunge

“It originally took us about three years to get the shop together, in terms of we had 18 months of planning – the build was quite quick on the shop and we took the plunge to do something that was quite a bit bigger than we’d anticipated it to be,” he says.

“It’s our first foray into retail, it’s literally the first thing we’ve done on it. It’s been a learning curve over the year but we do think we’re finally getting our head round it and understanding what way things work.

“But definitely the likes of taking on Musgrave for the Centra brand has been a big help. They had their team in for the first few months, I would almost say babysitting – guiding you into what you’re doing, helping you to understand the processes of your ordering and what way to set the shop up. They give you a lot of assistance, they check in with you and it’s in both our interests that the shop does well, so they keep in close contact with you, which helps.”

Promising site

The site itself had been in the family for around 15 years and had previously held a smaller filling station which was rented out. After that, it became offices for the family business, but the brothers felt it was perfectly located for a larger filling station.

“It’s on the main dual carriageway leaving Cookstown – it’s the main road that you have to go on to get to the M2 from Cookstown. It’s got its own community there in terms of a few houses about it in the Dunman area and people from the village of Lissan use the shop .

“We’ve got the Dale Farm cheese factory across the way as well so a lot of their staff use it as well. There isn’t any other petrol station on that actual road itself so it’s an ideal location.

“We thought to ourself it has to be a good location so thankfully it’s starting to prove to be the case – otherwise we’d be very worried men right now!”

Hands on

By early 2020, planning permission had already been secured for the project and the brothers had already priced builders – but the arrival of the pandemic changed everything and they found themselves taking on a much more hands-on approach.

“Money would have been a bit tighter, so we were saying ‘we’re not afraid of the project, we know exactly what we  have to do, so we’ll organise certain tradesmen to do certain things and we’ll do a large bulk of it ourselves’,” Peter says.

“It was a major jump in terms of what we’d done before but we weren’t scared of the idea of the project – we just thought we’d take it on anyway and build it ourselves.”

Luckily they already had experience of renovating properties, which stood them in good stead as their other businesses in the amusement arcade sector were affected by the Covid restrictions.

Key decisions

“We had to make a few decisions and do things ourselves to cut out levels of cost so it made the build a lot tighter than we’d have liked to have been – a few things where we would have liked to have done a bit differently and spend a bit more money on. But at the time it was either wait about for another couple of years and then get a contractor in, or do it ourselves,” Peter says.

“With the pandemic you didn’t know how long it was going to be on, but retailer shops were the last thing that was going to be closed. So for us as a family if we had some kind of income and business going it was like ‘ok well, let’s push ahead and get this thing going’ because it was something we could actually do. At that stage it was a guaranteed business that wouldn’t close down.

“We did spend a lot of time on it which probably helped us get it done quicker. The build took just short of a year, from the site start I would say it was around 11 months. But there wasn’t much socially to do outside of Covid at that time, so we would go to work!”

Deli vision

The building now consists of upstairs office space and a retail area below with a high emphasis on deli, which was a key part of their vision for the site.

“That’s partly why we picked Musgrave – they have a high emphasis on deli and have good teams in terms of setting your deli up right. We’ve put in a pressure fryer for pressure fried chicken which means your chicken is cooked from scratch every day with the coating we use on it,” Peter says.

“And then we’ve got our Green Kitchen which is a chopped salad type of idea and then we’ve got our full sandwich counter as well. We’ve got the grocery essentials so while there is an element of grocery in it, we know that the key things we need to make it work are ice cream, coffee and deli and everything else we build in round it.

“But people from the area are starting to use it as a grocery shop and we have fresh fruit and veg, household items, dog food, cat food, all your essentials and a seating area as well.

“Also, the partnership we entered with Nugelato and its owner Michael Nugent we feel was a great coup for the area. They are an award winning ice cream boutique who are renowned in Northern Ireland for the quality of their ice cream and have 31.2k Instagram followers, 67.8k Facebook likes and 90.4k Tik Tok followers.”

Access for lorries

The forecourt itself is a Go branded station which is designed to offer easier access for lorries.

“We have a separate lorry access so that they find it a lot easier to drive round the forecourt, rather than actually interacting with cars and traffic. So it’s lorry accessible and there’s a designated lorry pump that takes all the necessary fuel cards,” Peter says.

“It’s a Go forecourt so it’s a very well branded forecourt – they do a good job, they’re a reputable company in terms of quality of fuel so that’s a no-brainer for us, and they’re local guys as well.

“We’ve no charging at the minute because we don’t have the capacity in the grid for it, but it’s something that we will look into in future. It’s something we need to talk to NIE about to see whether they’ve got capacity.”

Growing curiosity

Peter says the new store was very well received when it launched in April last year.

“It was a hectic first week – everyone was curious to see what was going on and the curiosity has now turned into a solid customer base. Sales are growing and growing and people are getting used to the site and what it offers,” he says.

“The local community are delighted that they have a shop to come to and don’t have to go back and forth into Cookstown, so it suits them for sure.

“Realistically people come in with that curiosity to see what’s going on but that levelled off after the first couple of months and now we’re at the point where sales are growing and growing again as people get used to what we offer.

“On the site itself in terms of progression, we’d probably like to grow sales by offering a night-time offer of food in terms of bringing a bit more sales through the door. Our ice cream brings great numbers through the door later on at night.

Night time offer

“With a night-time offer we would have maximised what we can physically do on the site, so then as a family we would look for other opportunities outside of that, more shops to go onto and take it from there.

“We’re young and hungry sort of guys, we’re not worn down too much by it yet and we want to get on with our lives and do the best we can out of it!”

Peter pays tribute to all the support they have received in getting the shop up and running.

“We’re humbled by the support of our extended family that have helped us very much. We have aunties that would come in and clean at night if we need a hand or things are busy and even our uncles do bits and pieces, helping us out round the place as well,” he says.

“Even the staff themselves have been great. We’ve found we’ve kept a lot of the staff – normally whenever you hire at the start you seem to lose a lot of your staff, but we’ve kept a large part of our core team. They’ve been great in terms of making it seamless and smooth and keeping things running well, so we’re grateful for the staff that have stuck with us on the whole journey.”

To read the full feature in Neighbourhood Retailer, click HERE.

The post Taking the plunge: Dunman Centra’s first year in business first appeared on Neighbourhood Retailer.

Landscape Filling Station on the Crumlin Road in Belfast opened in mid January following a lengthy seven-year gestation and is already proving hugely popular.

It’s a sign of its appeal that even the builders who completed the work are now coming there for their lunch while they work on another project in Belfast.

The forecourt launched by The Wall Group, which owns four SPAR stores in the North Belfast area, has been built on former Housing Executive land and replaces a much smaller forecourt across the road, which is destined to provide social housing for the area.

Helen Wall explains: “Part of the deal was that we had to build houses as well. So we’ve built six social houses behind the new shop and when the other shop is knocked down we have to build another four. That was part of the deal – it’s like the redevelopment of the whole area.”

She’s hoping that this new forecourt will be at the heart of a wider redevelopment. “If somebody would get the hotel (at Crumlin Courthouse) up and running, somebody else is talking about doing a hub with offices, the whole bottom of the road could be changing, and hopefully we will have a Post Office coming soon.”

First foray

The old Landscape filling station was the first foray into convenience stores for Helen and her husband Gavan, founders of the Wall Group.

“It was 468 sq ft and we had rented it out to somebody else to run. So we started off with that, and then we went up to the Ardoyne store and then we got the Whitewell store and we got Rathcoole – they’re all SPAR stores,” she says.

“The original Landscape store was really a glorified sweet shop with a petrol court. We did so many sweets, fizzy drinks, cigarettes and petrol, whereas our new store has 15 dairy fridges, six freezers, it’s got a deli, a Nugelato ice cream concession – it’s everything the other shop wasn’t.”

Helen herself is a qualified accountant, who has worked with everyone from Winemark and Musgrave before finally joining her husband Gavan in the family business four years ago. Before that, she says, former barrister Gavan changed careers and took on retail as a full-time role 13 years ago when they encountered some difficulties with the leaseholder of the old Landscape station.

He decided to run the station himself, much to Helen’s shock at the time.

She explains, laughingly: “I said ‘What, I’m eight months’ pregnant and you’re going to leave the Bar’ – and let me tell you, he had a fabulous practice at the Bar. You’re joking! But he said No, I’ve always really wanted to do it … and he did.

“He started it and it was doing something like £9,000 a week, and when we left it was doing over £60,000. We did it, we opened 24 hours a day, 365 days a year and we partnered with Hendersons.

“Then a year and a half later, they said to him ‘Look we’ve another one just up the road, now Ardoyne is coming on board, do you fancy that’ and Gavin went ‘Yeah why not’ so then he took that one on.  And then he bought another out on the Whitewell Road and then Rathcoole came along.”

Regeneration

About four years into running Landscape, the Girdwood redevelopment came on the radar and there was a sense of things happening in North Belfast – and it spurred Gavan to put plans in place for a bigger and better version of the Landscape station.

“Even though he’s not from north Belfast, Gavan went to school in North Belfast and always loved it,” Helen says.

“He said this whole area needs to be redeveloped and someone’s talking about doing the Courthouse and Girdwood Barracks, they’re making it into a recreational centre. I’m going to try and get a new petrol station – this road is crying out for it.

“It took him seven years to get planning passed and he got planning passed in the middle of Covid, in lockdown. We got planning sanctioned in April and we started building in May.”

Helen pays tribute to the team who got the impressive new 5,000 sq ft store up and running so quickly, including builders Cleary Contracting, architects Aisling Lamont and Conor McCavitt from Whittaker Watt, WH Stephens, Dougan Contracts and Martin Food Equipment.

“We touched lucky, we had a really good team behind us – they were fabulous,” she says.

Five times the size

The site is over five times the size of the previous site and boasts an eight-pump Go Fuel forecourt with 22 car parking spaces – it will open 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

With The Wall Group’s bespoke ‘foodvenience’ offering, shoppers can pick up the SPAR Enjoy Local own-brand fresh food range, alongside food-to-go counters, including the Nugelato brand, the dailyDeli and Barista Bar coffee machines.

“We’ve got a complete fresh concession, with 15 fridges and six or seven freezers,” Helen says.

“We’ve put doors on all our fridges to keep our energy costs down and conserve energy and we don’t have any of the 5p plastic bags as well.”

Meanwhile, the team have gone for state-of-the-art when it comes to store tech, investing in many of Henderson’s most up-to-the-minute developments.

“Each checkout has got the new Glory system attached to it so our staff never have to touch cash which was very beneficial during Covid,” Helen says.

“So if you came in and you wanted to pay and it was £18 you can either tap your credit card or if you put in £20 it will shoot you out your £2 change. It’s all facing you as a customer so there’s no cash touched by our staff.

New ESELS

“And we’ve gone for the electronic shelf edge labels, the ESELs. When you think of all the paper and the ink you’re using for all the ordinary SELs, hopefully that will be a move that we will make through all our stores eventually and put in the electronic SELS.

“The benefit of ESELS should be realised at promotional change-overs. Staff members can utilise their time in a more productive and value adding activity.

“We’re still trying to find our feet on it, but hopefully we will and it’s certainly something I would put in the other stores, so it doesn’t take half a day every time there’s a promotional change.”

It should also help with the familiar dilemma that arises when Trading Standards comes to tell them that something advertised at 58p has actually cost £75p, she says.

“Everything like that should match because it’s the back-office press of a button that sends all the prices, and what comes through the tills goes straight on to the electronic SELs. So hopefully it’s not only increasing labour productivity and saving on paper costs, but it will make us more compliant for Trading Standards – otherwise things can get missed.

“I’ve done it now in this store because we wanted as much high tech that we could put into it to see if it works. We need to see, does it do what it says on the tin.”

The company has also invested in an HR system called OBBI which provides an onboarding process for every new employee that is recruited. It records the age of the employee, their details and whether they’re able and trained to sell cigarettes or lottery tickets: “It will ensure that we’ve got every member of staff trained to the right level and compliant with all the legal obligations that we’re meant to do within the store.”

Succession planning

The Wall Group has a culture of promoting from within and this system should help fit staff to the best posts and assist with succession planning, Helen says.

“It means we can ask Colin, who is the manager that we promoted to  a role encompassing Training, People Development, Compliance and Audit, ‘Who do we know in stores who have got x, y and z’ and he should be able to pull up and say ‘Helen, she’s able to do x, y and z’ – will she be beneficial down here, this is what we need.”

The Wall Group are proud of their organisational structure which allows them to respond quickly when anything unexpected comes along.

Helen pays tribute to their full-time accountant Ruairi who has put in place a portal that allows them access to regular information on the performance of each department.

“Ruairi has implemented a whole new system, the Wall Group Portal where we can monitor our KPI’s on a daily basis.

Our Operations Director, Kieran and his team ensures that all our stores deliver on sales, margin and excellent staffing. He ensures the smooth running of our four Spar stores and our Subway outlets.

“We’ve set up the systems and procedures, so if we get another store on board, we literally just lift these tools and put them over to the next site.”

Helen says that while they’re still on the look-out for more stores, they are hugely proud of the one they’ve just opened.

“It’s magnificent. It’s a £3 million spend – we decided from the start that we would build a beautiful store – fantastic lights and even from the front, it looks really good.

“Mind you when the first electricity bill came in, it was three times what I thought it was going to be with the way utilities are at the moment! But it looks really, really well. I’m so glad that we did it and I’m really proud of how it looks.”

The post A magnificent store: The Wall Group’s Landscape Filling Station first appeared on Neighbourhood Retailer.

Landscape represents a £3 million investment by The Wall Group and has created 30 new jobs, taking the total number of staff to 50 at the new store.

The new build store, which stands at 5,000 sq ft – more than five times the size of the previous site adjacent to the original store – also boasts an eight-pump GO Fuel forecourt, 22 car parking spaces and will open 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Landscape will also bring SPAR NI’s signature fresh credentials to the area, with bays of fresh and everyday essentials, boasting an impressive range of locally sourced products by Henderson Wholesale.

With The Wall Group’s bespoke ‘foodvenience’ offering, shoppers can pick up the likes of the SPAR Enjoy Local own-brand fresh food range alongside various food-to-go counters, including the Nugelato brand, an exciting new addition to The Wall Group for 2022.

Helen Wall also hinted that there will be more surprises for shoppers to look out for in the coming weeks; “Our niche ‘foodvenience’ offering is why our stores are so popular – we are delivering unique experiences that are completely different to our competitors. We’re excited to announce what else is to come for our new Landscape store!

“We are starting the New Year off as we mean to go on, and providing even more value, choice and convenience to the people of North Belfast with our latest SPAR store. It is the fourth SPAR store to open within The Wall Group, and we are proud to bring 30 additional job opportunities to the area.

“We strongly believe in nurturing talent, and with the difficult times the world has seen in the past couple of years, it is great to be able to focus on enhanced local services, which we know our teams provide throughout all our stores and brands, whether in SPAR, Subway, Post Office, dailyDeli or Nugelato.

“Shoppers can expect the signature Wall Group welcome at Landscape Filling Station, where they can top up on fuel and all other utilities on their doorstep, as well as browse our range of fresh foods for tonight’s tea. Once again, we’re excelling at providing food-to-go in a safe, user-friendly way and have Barista Bar coffee machines, a Nugaleto Ice Cream concession serving all flavours and toppings, not forgetting their famous Nuggy Pots, and of course, the dailyDeli.”

Fresh options

Landscape will house the latest dailyDeli concept from SPAR which includes the grab and go chicken bar, alongside a range of fresh options for sandwiches, salads and wraps and hot food such as fresh, homemade chicken curry.

Paddy Doody, Sales and Marketing Director at Henderson Group which owns SPAR in Northern Ireland, congratulated The Wall Group in their latest venture: “Once again, The Wall Group has taken the SPAR concept and made it their own to work entirely for their target demographic in the wider North Belfast area. The striking Landscape Filling Station is a fantastic addition to Crumlin Road and the Lower Oldpark area, providing vital employment and growth opportunities, driven by a hugely dedicated team.

“We wish Gavan and Helen the best of luck as they continue to grow their SPAR portfolio in Northern Ireland.”

Landscape Filling Station will partner with Marie Curie as the official charity partner of SPAR across the UK, while also supporting local schools, groups and organisations including the Lower Oldpark Community Association whose support has been critical in delivering the new store, and additional housing on the site.

Helen said: “We are in the heart of the community here and believe in supporting those who support us. Providing funding and essentials for schools and community groups in the area is how we give back, and we look forward to connecting even more with the communities of Crumlin Road and Lower Oldpark, and wider North Belfast.”

Caption: Colin Cunningham, Helen and Gavan Wall and Emma Morrow from The Wall Group officially declare the £3M Landscape Filling Station SPAR NI store open on the Crumlin Road, Belfast. The store has created 30 additional jobs for the local area, bringing the number employed by the store to 50 in total.

The post The Wall Group opens its fourth SPAR NI store with £3M investment first appeared on Neighbourhood Retailer.

When the Conway brothers did their research and decided that the Centra name was the one for them, they’d no idea it would turn out to be a milestone for the Musgrave symbol group too – it just turned out that way – but it made for good PR and helped put the new store firmly on the map.

Shared venture

The new enterprise is the shared venture of three brothers – Peter Conway, the eldest – and twins Daniel and Declan.

The family had owned the land for around fifteen years, where once there was an old service station, which was knocked down a couple of years ago.

“It was the ideal opportunity for a new project” explained Peter.

The Centra is coupled with a Go forecourt. It is easily accessible from the dual carriageway, and the forecourt has ample space including two lorry bays.

“It’s on an A road – so there’s plenty of passing traffic.”

Clearly Peter had done his homework and spent time researching the best symbol group for the site.

“Centra ticked all the boxes. It wasn’t just that the site secured plenty of passing trade, Centra has the high emphasis on its deli offering and coffee” said Peter.

Daniel Conway, Peter Conway, Martin Conway, Declan Conway and with Musgrave Managing Director Trevor Magill.

Centra concept

It was this particular emphasis on the deli that really sold the Centra concept to Peter Conway.

“The deli is the focus of the place – the shop builds itself around the successful deli – it is a special offering. The deli takes priority and everything else is there to support it. I travelled around the country, back and forth, looking for the details that make a difference – I wanted it to be right from the start.”

This is the first venture in to forecourt retailing for the enterprising family. The brothers had other interests in AirBnB, property, and a range of other businesses – but they had no idea that their forecourt would be the one hundredth Centra store.

“It was around 18 months in the planning – but spread over three years. The actual building took just over a year. There’s a lot more to opening a forecourt than you’d think – all the groundwork, the tanks – there’s a lot of spade work to be done first. However we had some excellent support and expertise – in particular, Raymond Armstrong who helped put the forecourt together. He really went over and above the call of duty to make sure it was all as it should be.”

Although having the site ready for electric vehicle chargers wasn’t an option just now – that’s something planned for down the road.

Centra brand

“The deli, the Frank & Honest coffee, and the Green Kitchen were all part of the Centra brand and we wanted to focus on that. The Green Kitchen is a lovely healthy offering, of chopped salads and the deli features everything hot and cold that hits the mark.

“We’re also particularly proud of the Nugelato ® ice cream boutique – it provides some theatre with its chocolate fountain. We consider it quite a coup to get the Nugelato band instore. There are around seven or eight outlets In Northern Ireland so far, but not many in forecourts.

“Nugelato has 60,000 followers on facebook – people are happy to queue to get this perfect ice cream – then post the pics on social media.”

The Nugelato brand is the brain child of Michael Nugent (hence the brand name – Nugeleto) and as Peter explained, he’s very protective of the brand name. and as Peter explained, he’s very protective of the brand name.

“Michael Nugent is very passionate and protective of his Nugelato brand, which is something we feel lends itself to perfectly fit our store ethos” explained Peter.

“It started in Newcastle and is now being rolled out. They deliver their fresh vanilla ice cream directly to us – a fresh vanilla mix in Nuggy pots which are then made up instore. It really has gone down very well for us – especially in the evenings. People are literally queued out the door.”

Food trends

Certainly ice cream has been one of the big food trends throughout the pandemic – with people opting for a walk or a drive with the ice cream treat to top it all off. The ice cream brings people in store – all the grocery and chilled offerings are all available too, along with the usual services from a forecourt and convenience store such as the lotto and so on.

The 100^th Centra at Dunman, Cookstown was lucky enough to avoid the worst of lockdown.

“A lot of our family businesses did have to shut down throughout Covid so this was a completely new family business, a whole new venture for us. With all the restrictions, it was like a security blanket – knowing we were putting together something special that would remain classified as an essential business. We were also fortunate that lock down gave us plenty of time to focus.

“We are a business family and myself and my brothers have grown up in the family businesses – but this really was a brand new venture for us.

Do it right, do it once

“We knew if we were going to do it that we wanted to get it right – my mantra is ‘do it right, do it once’. There were a few blips along the way, it wasn’t all plain sailing but there was nothing that couldn’t be fixed.

“We’ve also been delighted with the support from the local community – both the support for the business and the support for the family and the wider community. There’s a great community opposite. The people are just delighted with their new store and forecourt – the support has quite literally been overwhelming.”

The new forecourt and store is also providing employment for 35 local people. The big success stories in store have been the ice cream and the deli.

It’s an exciting time for Musgrave too which is investing £12 million in its Centra and SuperValu stores this year.

Will their be more forecourts and convenience stores from the Conway brothers in the future?

“We’re young enough and hungry enough so any opportunities that come up, we’ll go for it.”

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The post New Centra with Go forecourt – Conway Brothers Shared Venture near Cookstown first appeared on Neighbourhood Retailer.