Limerick Businesses Opening

vkid

Vanquished wrote: »

Well Starbucks may be coming to Limerick but they won't be setting up camp in the former HMV premises. That's actually going to become a Costa coffee outlet.

Interestingly planning permission has also been sought recently for a new cafe in the crescent shopping centre fronting the central square area beside Tesco.

The plot thickens!

Really, really not a fan of Costa Coffee. Can't see it attracting a whole pile of people to the city center either

Jofspring

Ya it's not exactly going to draw people in with two stores already on the outskirts of the city. I'm just glad though to see that the building is going to have a tenant. Looks awful having the first building on that end of Cruises Street empty.

Mr E

Balls... I'd prefer anything to Costa - their coffee isn't great.

The Moldy Gowl

Gowlasauras Rex wrote: »

Sure it's Starbucks???

I know costa want to move to town. Area manager said it to a girl I know if she wanted to be manager.

Can't remember where she said.

Called it 3 weeks ago.

Thing about costa is they aren't competitive or flexible. Will still have the same prices, 2 euro more for coffee and 3 euro more for pre made crap sandwiches.

Any store can beat them, costa don't care about customers. They treat their stores more like a Tesco.

But some people just like to buy the name, which is a shame.

Pumpkinseeds

Mr E wrote: »

Balls... I'd prefer anything to Costa - their coffee isn't great.

Actually I really like their Latte. Costa is the only place that I've been able to get a latte that's the perfect temperature for me, everywhere else it's so hot the flavour is destroyed and it burns my lips. So many places in Ireland are so bad at lattes that I just order a cup of filter coffee, it's hard for them to screw that up.

Their food is far too overpriced though.

The Moldy Gowl

Just ask them to heat the milk up to 140f

If a coffee shop can't do that or know how to do that, then just don't get coffee there.

Exile on Grafton St.

I don't want to derail this thread, but can anyone remember the last time a high profile major retailer opened a store in the City Centre? I know that a lot of the units in town aren't large enough to cater for these types of stores, but surely Starbucks could have found a suitable unit for their needs.

I just hope this isn't a sign that Starbucks didn't think the city centre wasn't classy enough for them and would prefer to open in the Crescent or another Irish city centre...

flutered

it is eight years ago that i was told that the were to be coming, a club in town were all set to sak them for a sponsership deal, i told the m two things, one that they were not set up yet, two they do not do such deals, i was speaking to the same guy recently and i asked him were they still all set to approach them, he said its best to wait.

The Moldy Gowl

There is no reason for them to open in the city.

They would make 15k a week in cresent and 30/40 at Christmas.

They would be lucky to make 5k a week in the city

Might as well just wait until somewhere in the cresent is free.

tommy249

Gowlasauras Rex wrote: »

They would make 15k a week in cresent and 30/40 at Christmas.

They would be lucky to make 5k a week in the city

Interesting stats - what is the basis for them? -also, what about the thousands of people that work in the city center during the day? It's not just shoppers who buy coffee

Cartman78

Mr E wrote: »

Balls... I'd prefer anything to Costa - their coffee isn't great.

Ditto...love coffee but genuinely don't like Costa....would be a very underwhelming addition but better than nothing I guess

Poxyshamrock

Exile on Grafton St. wrote: »

I don't want to derail this thread, but can anyone remember the last time a high profile major retailer opened a store in the City Centre?

Probably 2007/2008 when the City Central development opened on Bedford Row.

johnmolloy554

tommy249 wrote: »

Interesting stats - what about the thousands of people that work in the city center during the day?

I'd say that figure of thousands that work in the City Centre is a little off.

Vanquished

tommy249 wrote: »

Interesting stats - what is the basis for them? -also, what about the thousands of people that work in the city center during the day? It's not just shoppers who buy coffee

Indeed. Starbucks have opened numerous outlets in the Dublin office districts purely to capitalise on the commercial footfall.

No doubt Starbucks are confident enough in their brand and would regard it as a crowd puller in itself if it chose to locate in the city centre. You also have to consider that the rent is much higher in the crescent shopping centre too.

I believe they were looking at the vacant unit beside Laura Ashley down on Henry Street. This has planning permission for cafe use already and it was set to be filled by a BB's coffee outlet a couple of years back but this never materialised.

tommy249

johnmolloy554 wrote: »

I'd say that figure of thousands that work in the City Centre is a little off.

Seriously?? You think the number of people who work in the city centre is only in the hundreds? ?

There are a couple if hundred in sarsfield house alone. And another couple of hundred in River point

The Moldy Gowl

tommy249 wrote: »

Interesting stats - what is the basis for them? -also, what about the thousands of people that work in the city center during the day? It's not just shoppers who buy coffee

Probably because I worked in costa for about 4/5 years through college so have a fairly good idea how much places in the cresent make and have worked in town.

A cafe in town would be doing good if they made more than 700 a day while Saturdays in the cresent at lunch they make 400 on a decent busy hour.

Costa are moving to town to saturate the area.

They can offset some of the cost from town by getting more people to go to Childers an cresent simply by having their name everywhere

Exile on Grafton St.

Poxyshamrock wrote: »

Probably 2007/2008 when the City Central development opened on Bedford Row.

Yeah, that's what I was thought, but I was hoping I'd be wrong...

Vanquished

johnmolloy554 wrote: »

I'd say that figure of thousands that work in the City Centre is a little off.

Rubbish. There are easily thousands of people working in the city centre across the financial, legal, education, retail, public service, hospitality and healthcare sectors.

The all too common city centre bashing in Limerick is getting very tiresome!

Exile on Grafton St.

"No doubt Starbucks are confident enough in their brand and would regard it as a crowd puller in itself if it chose to locate in the city centre. You also have to consider that the rent is much higher in the crescent shopping centre too".

Personally, I agree with you regarding Starbucks being a crowd puller in the city centre in Limerick, but they've had failures elsewhere. They pulled out of Dalkey and Ranelagh in Dublin - two places I would have expected them to do well. They've only 5 Starbucks outlets left in Melbourne, after initially opening 16 (not a terribly relevant example, but you get my point).

Also, I think the rent that was being sought for the HMV unit in Cruise's Street was actually higher than for the unit in the Crescent (I'm open to correction on that one).

I don't drink coffee, but I'd like to see Starbucks somewhere in the City Centre, if only to give the area a small lift. Hopefully you're right about Starbucks moving in next to Laura Ashley - I think that would be an excellent location...

juneg

all things being considered there is a market in the crescent. coffee shops are busy there with often no seats to be had.

Poxyshamrock

If if's the old Barratt's shoe shop that is the unit in question, I could definitely see Starbucks opening there.

Hope it's not though, I always hate seeing the Crescent get one up on the city centre.

Berty

Barratts is very small for a Coffee shop. There is very little storage space behind it and there wouldn't be very much seating space unless they were allowed by the crescent / rented from the crescent some of the seating area in the centre of the malls. Other shopping centre allows this and it's really a dead enough area with a couple of benches and the random charity collectors.

Poxyshamrock

Costa have seating on the mall by the library so I could see Starbucks being allowed too.

Alternatively, they could plonk a kiosk in the middle like I saw when I was on holidays a couple of years back.

Poxyshamrock

Topaz on the Dock Road reopening on the 13th of May at 6am.

Vanquished

Poxyshamrock wrote: »

If if's the old Barratt's shoe shop that is the unit in question, I could definitely see Starbucks opening there.

Hope it's not though, I always hate seeing the Crescent get one up on the city centre.

Yeah I've never understood the obsession some have with that shopping centre. It seems to be regarded as some form of retail mecca by many. To me it's just a monotonous, sterile, soulless experience any time I set foot in there. Indeed you could characterise pretty much any Irish shopping centre as such!

Give me the open air and diversity of sights and sounds in the city centre any day.

miralize

In Fairness its probably the nicest and most diverse outside of Dublin,. The nicest one in Ireland is Victoria Square in Belfast though.

Poxyshamrock

miralize wrote: »

In Fairness its probably the nicest and most diverse outside of Dublin,. The nicest one in Ireland is Victoria Square in Belfast though.

Victoria Square is incredible.
Damn cold in winter though. :pac:

Vanquished

miralize wrote: »

In Fairness its probably the nicest and most diverse outside of Dublin,. The nicest one in Ireland is Victoria Square in Belfast though.

It's the biggest outside of Dublin but it's still a pretty bog standard, unremarkable collection of malls surrounding by a massive car park and a drive through McDonald's.

The beautiful shopping arcades you find in even small, provincial European cities put dreary Irish shopping centres firmly in their place!

Vanquished

Indeed a Victoria Square type project which integrates with and respects the urban grain and surrounding street pattern would have been an ideal development for Limerick. Especially around the Arthur's Quay or Cruises Street/Denmark Street area.

Instead developers were permitted to tear down some of the earliest Georgian townhouses in Limerick including a 200 year old hotel laced with history and replace them with cheap, poorly designed tripe that was obsolete less than 20 years later!:mad:

Poxyshamrock

Passed Clem Smith's on the way from College today and it's reopening as the Kasbah!