Barnhill Stores profile Fionnuala Carolan talks

Founder and manager of Barnhill Stores in Dalkey, Dave Whelan is a well-seasoned retailer having previously owned eight convenience stores before taking the plunge and creating his own brand that has gone above and beyond all his expectations. Fionnuala Carolan reports

Sales at Barnhill Stores in Dalkey are up 100% on last year

Optimum convenience

While still attending school, Dave Whelan began a part-time job in the old H Williams supermarket in Killiney, south county Dublin and subsequently he left school to start working full-time in retail. After a decade working as a manager for a number of SuperValu and Centra stores he bought his own Centra store in Bray in 1999. Within a few years he had accumulated eight stores along the M11 including a second in Bray, two in Tinahealy, one in Greystones, Gorey, Ballybrack and finally Dalkey. Running eight stores eventually took its toll and Whelan knew it was time for a radical change of pace which culminated in Barnhill Stores in Dalkey.

So what triggered the decision to change tack and leave Centra behind? “We weren’t playing to our market here in Dalkey,” he says. “I knew I could create something special. I was 49, I had three young kids and I decided that before I was 50 I wanted to make a change and not be running around between so many shops.” As part of a lifestyle choice he decided to sell the Centra businesses back to Musgrave. “I wanted to spend more time with my kids and we wanted to develop a local store and the community here lends itself to that,” he explains. His wife Karen and three daughters supported his decision to go it alone and he says they are very proud of the brand he has created.

STORE PROFILE Retailer: Dave Whelan Address: 11-12 Barnhill Road, Dalkey, Dublin, A96 F789 Staff: 60 staff; 20 full-time and 40 part-time Size: 5,000sq ft Opening hours: Monday – Sunday: 7:30am-9pm

Super suppliers

Barnhill Stores is a 5,000 square foot bespoke store, which officially opened in February 2021 and is packed to the brim with the best produce there is on the market. This involves partnerships with suppliers such as Two Fifty Square Coffee, Naomi’s Kitchen, George’s Fish Shop, FX Buckley Butchers, Rustic Honey Baker and Unique Flowers.

“Our vision was never to be the person that created everything because we want the experts in each field to do that and we bring it all together in the shop,” he says. “If you try to do too much and fail you could kill your brand in an instant.”

He describes himself as a hands-on retailer who likes to be on the floor and do back office work at night. The store is managed by Whelan’s long-standing staff member Mikey O’Brien, with Aoife Peare as assistant manager and John Hoade as the resident wine enthusiast. Anndrea Carydias, previously a chef for Avoca, is the fresh goods innovation manager and curates all the fresh food in-store. Whelan feels he has a really strong team delivering his vision.

Whelan’s experience of dealing with the public and his understanding of the convenience model has benefited him greatly and allowed him to create a very unique brand. He explains that he has been on a journey to bring this luxury convenience model to life and uses the example of how he sells hummus to demonstrate this. “We get our hummus from Lilliput Trading Company,” he says. “They wanted us to take a big wooden barrel and put it in our deli. We are a high-end on the move convenience store. Our customers don’t have time to spend all day waiting at the deli counter. I told them (Lilliput Trading Company) that I wanted to do hummus in a pot which is not how they would traditionally supply it. We now sell over 500 pots of hummus a week,” he says.

Whelan has witnessed many of his suppliers thrive during Covid because they seized new

From salads to sandwiches, free range rotisserie chicken and savoury delights, the deli department prides itself on using only the freshest, seasonal ingredients every day

opportunities. He cites Naomi’s Kitchen as a prime example of a supplier who adapted quickly during the pandemic. This business would have traditionally catered for large events but it partnered with Barnhill Stores to give them a full ready-meal solution and that partnership is working really well. “Naomi was adaptable and willing to change things up to survive the pandemic,” says Whelan.

Streamlining

One year in and the business is much busier than he ever imagined and he hopes to have paid back the €2 million investment in less than three years, probably closer to two he candidly admits. “Our sales are up 100% on last year so we are just trading out of our skins. The shop is actually overtrading. We’re constantly wishing that the new year was upon us and things will calm down. It’s exhausting going at that pace,” he says.

They are “blown away” by the financial end of it and the only piece of the model they have left to work on is to tweak the offering on the shop floor. He admits that they took on too many brands at the start because he found it hard to say no to all the lovely artisan products they were being presented with but now needs to fine-tune the mix to make it easier to manage. While you can still buy Brennan’s bread and Avonmore milk, most wouldn’t be using Barnhill Stores for their full weekly shop.

“If I put tins of Roses on sale I can’t give them away. They’ll go to Tesco for that,” he explains. “At the beginning some customers were saying it was so expensive but now there is that expectation and they are coming in to get something that they can’t get elsewhere like Skelligs Chocolate or Sheridan’s Cheese for example. We don’t stock the brands that are in Centra or Dunnes. People might say the shop is very expensive but it’s their taste that is expensive,” he frankly states.

Brand support

Needless to say, Whelan is delighted with the trajectory of the brand but we wondered was there anything he missed from trading with a symbol brand like Musgrave?

“Yes I suppose with Centra everything was push a button and you could order 80% of the shop’s lines,” he says. “Now we have 120 suppliers so that means 120 emails, contacts etc so there’s a lot of work.”

For products that can be ordered through central billing and the IT and back end processes he is using BWG Foods. “We’re not totally independent. We are using BWG for the back end. They allow you to be yourself but you can use the platform for all the run of the mill stuff,” he explains and says that the option to do this with Musgrave was not available to them after the sale of his shops despite retaining a good relationship with the group.

Customers are coming into Barnhill Stores to find something a little different that they can’t find elsewhere, says retailer Dave Whelan

Post-Covid

While many people have more disposable income at the moment due to a lack of socialising and travel and are happy to spend it on luxury fare, will the demand still be there for this high-end concept postpandemic? Whelan is realistic yet confident. “I’d be naïve to think that the end of Covid won’t hit us in some form but Dalkey is a village that has returned to normality mostly despite restaurants not being at full capacity. I don’t believe that workers are going to go back to offices full-time so we’ve gained a new type of customer who might have eaten in town twice a day and now we have them, for breakfast, lunch and dinner.”

Speaking of Covid he strongly feels that the government has taken retail staff for granted during the pandemic and not regarded them as frontline workers. Barnhill Stores has 60 staff, 20 full-time and the rest part-time and Whelan has been impressed with their commitment during a difficult time. “Our staff are dealing with really stressed, demanding individuals at times. They are not thanked or getting a national day’s holiday or being clapped on their way home. I don’t think the government has done enough to thank retail staff. It’s such a vital service,” he says. He made the decision to reduce the opening hours to take the stress off the staff at either end of the day.

Five-year plan

The first anniversary of Barnhill Stores is nearly upon them and like all successful entrepreneurs, Whelan is already thinking about the next step. He is planning four more stores over the next five years and has already pinpointed locations in south county Dublin to expand into. He explains that replicating the model is easy once the location is right. “It’s like the Centras, you get to grips with that model and you apply your own standards to it. It’s easy to expand to the next one so you are just reapplying the same model.”

While you would question whether he is moving any closer to achieving his work life balance goal from his days running between eight stores, he is definitely relishing the journey and has immense pride in what he has created. Watch out south county Dublin for the next instalment of Barnhill Stores as a new era of high end convenience takes hold. ■

The bespoke store features partnerships with suppliers such as Sheridan’s Cheeses, Two Fifty Square Coffee, Naomi’s Kitchen, George’s Fish Shop, FX Buckley Butchers, Rustic Honey Baker and Unique Flowers