Who remembers Roches Stores?

My mother use to bring me there in the 90s to buy some extra cheap runners and track suits. £4 got you a full tracksuit in the early 90s.

What if Debenhams never bought it?

That would probably be best left to Russell Brand. .

Yeah they did some sort of voluntary redundancy programme maybe 2006 or so - the rest of staff who remained then transferred a cross to Debenhams shortly after.

Switzers was the posh shop. Arnotts was middle class, Boyers was a cheaper version of arnotts but everybody shopped in Roches - great for things like luggage, kitchen utensils bed linen -all well priced but good quality

Yes I remember Rouches Stores. Loved it.

Bought my first micro Machines in the one in Wexford.

My only regret was that I bought Star Wars instead of Star Trek ones. My thinking was awe sure I will get them next. Should have went Star Trek first then Star Wars. Spent €50 pounds altogether on all the Star Wars ones I bought which was nearly all of them I think. Might not seem like much now but in the 90s it was. Probably the equivalent to €500 now is it?

Anyone know how to work inflation out on prices?

If you remember the Roches in Galway. The lift used to be over on the left. It’s not a lift between 1st/2nd floors the odd time if you’re in it with staff you might end up on the top floor store before ending up on your chosen floor. If you do when the lift opens up there you will see the old tiling on the floor and a flood of other things that will remind you of Roches of old. It used to be a place that if we got the shopping done and dad wasn’t ready to collect my mother we would get a pink snack in the cafe and have a stick of it each.

it reads more like something from a Ross O Carroll Kelly book/article

this shite sounds more like Swiss Toni - "you see Paul, buying a car is very much like making love to a beautiful woman....'

My standout memories of roches stores- going up the escalator to the cafe, big long buffet of hot food, then getting ice cream scoops served in a small metal bowel. The adults having cream cakes and tea out of leaky tea pots. -Think the chairs were red cushioned

on the ground floor to the right was all the stationary - spending ages picking the best fancy paper or stickers to swap with friends.

was there a supermarket too?

They always had a great selection of toys, all the good Gi-Joes and Transformers

Have you invented a new fetish based on female retail workers?

A supermarket in the Galway store: there sure was. I seem to remember that it was considered pricey, or too pricey for my parents' liking.

Roches was a great spot for the random one-off purchase, say, a bit of felt, or a hot water bottle.

Is it fair to say that Roches had the first escalator in Galway? (Maybe Moon's also had one - I honestly never darkened the door of that place until after Brown Thomas took it over.)

the bag

In the late 80's, it was the only place in Galway that sold Buckfast.

It wasn't even in the booze section.

Beside other stuff called Sanatogen (methinks).

What a shop, it had everything. The one in Wilton in Cork was actually quite small, its amazing the variety of quality products they fit into such a small store. Great sports section, shoes, electrical, homeware and stationery.

I was moving house recently and I was clearing out the attic, found a couple of Roches Stores carrier bags with bits in them.

Forget they even had a grocery section. In later years I do remember Super valu franchises in the Dublin ones. Not for long though

A thread from 2018, which says they closed in 2007, I feel old.