Our family history in the service industry begins back in the 50’s Longford where central for Douglas and Kaldi was my Mother Mary Kelleher. One of the Sloweys from Minard, she comes from a very popular Co Longford family having six sisters and two brothers. Indeed the Slowey family have a long association with the town’s Main Street that stretches well back beyond the past forty years as their grandfather, ran a very successful bar and grocery business where Valentine’s bar is now located.

Mary’s first venture was with her sisters when they took over the lease at the railway station known as Sloweys Restaurant, which was a thriving restaurant throughout the 1950s. This was the time when bus transportation was the principal means of getting around and from early morning to evening, together the Slowey sisters provided the people of Longford good value and wholesome food.

Catering then was a much more labour intensive process remembers Mary: “The last job every evening was peeling the potatoes. You simply didn’t come in the next day unless the potatoes were done. Today everything is ready prepared. I remember back then when we got our first potato peeler and the excitement and how we thought it was going to make everything so easy. But it just made one job easier - there was still so much more to do.”

1950s Longford was a very different place and whilst we might be feeling sorry for ourselves now as we slip into a recession, this is nothing compared to the hardship endured back then. Remembers Mary: “CIE used to run special buses to bring hundreds of men to Scotland to pick the potatoes and they would stay there for 3 months. These were hard times.”

By evening, Sloweys Restaurant also doubled as one of the region’s most popular wedding venues. Says Mary: “The weddings were always special. A lot more simple than today’s wedding but nonetheless a great source of celebration and there isn’t a day goes by that I don’t see young people in the town whose parents would have had their weddings in the Restaurant.”

Mary and Vincent Kelleher purchased 12 Main Street from the The Cosgrove family in 1969. Remembers Mary: “The price was €7,000 and that was an awful lot of money back then. Pubs were still a very good business at the time. There was a time were there was a pub for every week of the year in Longford town (52) and when we bought there were still 45 of them open.”

In March of that year we extended the bar in Longford and opened a small Coffee House in Longford. Its immediate success and winning formula led to the opening of a second store in Navan in July 2003. Having observed our success we realized we could take this idea further. Through market research we examined the importance of branding and we decided to change the name from XANO to Douglas & Kaldi. By April 2005 we opened the first Douglas & Kaldi in Ongar Village, Dublin 15. July 2007 saw the opening of Douglas & Kaldi in Rathborne Village, Dublin 15. Our family undertook a major renovation of Main Street Longford and after a year of Construction, Douglas & Kaldi opened in Longford in a modern building with conference facilities. In April 2009 our latest Douglas and Kaldi opened in Dundrum shopping centre. With the experience gained and the evident success of all the stores, we now aim to take Douglas & Kaldi to a new level.