Goodbye Roches Stores...
Un'altra istituzione di Cork vittima della globalizzazione...
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Bye Bye Roches Stores
Danny Elbow
Landmark names like the Queens Old Castle, The Capital Cineplex and the world renowned high-class restaurant Mandy's have all gone to retail Heaven during our lives but now it's the turn of one of Pana's biggest names to finally kick the can and I'm getting a bit emotional like.
One of few shops in town you can get buy a buggie, a bra, booze and a baguette in the same place.
There was a certain pride a feen had in walking through Dublin on his way to Croke Park seeing locals pouring out of a giant retail store with a Cork name on it knowing all profits would be returning to Leeside and clean Cork hands.
Roches Stores Patrick Street branch was even the place where Ben Dunne Snr. (the founder not the cokey-whorey-sleazy feen who was suspiciously generous to Fianna Fáil) learned his trade before founding Roches' biggest rival Dunnes Stores. Therefore it is without any exaggeration that we say that Cork is where the Irish retail revolution began.
Good glug opportunities and lots of escalators for smallies to occupy themselves with while their mams shop.
The indomitable spirit of Roches' founder William Roche was typically Cork in its magnitude and most evident when his first store on Pana was burned down by the Black and Tans in 1920. Determined not to let the last British insult in their occupation of Cork get the better of him, he re-opened his furniture store to great acclaim less than a week later.
Friendly staff
William Roche was big on customer service and despite the pressures of profit in modern day Celtic Tiger Ireland his Cork stores managed to maintain their big friendly attitude without acquiring the faux-smiling sell-sell-sell approach adopted by other retailers.
Nothing gets on a Corkonians' nipples more than being harassed by staff the second you walk in the door of a clothes shop intent on buying nothing but a pair of socks:
"Y'arite for size there boy? We've some great discounts on leather jackets upstairs in our leather department like…jah wanna come up with me for a look and we'll fit you out?"
A far cry from the days of the cigarette counter and supermarket of old. Supervalue now rules the roost.
Roches staff always maintained their distance until you engaged with them and if you needed a 40 inch leg on your size 34 jeans a young man would happily disappear on your behalf for five minutes to root around a stock room.
Helping Hand
Department stores as large as Roches are often maze like - especially to the vertically challenged who don't have the giraffe like benefit of being able to peer over shelves.
When a bent-over visually impaired old lady asks staff in the perfume department where the goats milk section has been moved to, you can be assured a young shelf stacker will be dispatched to accompany her to the supermarket to make double sure she won't end up purchasing Eau de Cologne or weed killer to put into her tea later that evening.
The first Roches on Merchant Street in 1901. The street was later consummed by the Merchant's Quay centre
Returning Mangled Stuff You Bought
Roches Stores since its inception has strenuously enforced its policy of 'the customer is always right'. Even if a customer's hyper children have been playing long slogs up and down an isle with a brand new sliothar from the sports department and managed to send an entire row of strawberry jams crashing to the floor, Roches staff would never be the kind to confront a mother with a lax child monitoring policy. Staff would simply clean up without demand for rebate from an already embarrassed mother.
Returning goods and gifts has always been a hassle free process with Roches - another trump card over the sometimes vociferous competition - some of who would rather glug in your face than get off their ring piece. Many customer service departments will start their sighing and head shaking long before you've even completed your request or complaint. Not in Roches.
When a cranky middle aged woman returned a mould encrusted sliced pan that went out of date in 1976 and firmly believing Roches were responsible for its demise, the policy was always a smile and a refund or a replacement at the very least. The path of least resistance of course was a policy that won favour among Cork's housewives giving them very little to complain about - Roches's tills kept ringing and everyone was happy.
Two old wans with matching peroxides roam the isles
Debenhams
So a life long institution for most Corkonians finally departs the retail scene, gobbled up by another English sounding surname for better or worse. Referring to Roches as 'Debenhams' is going to take us Corkonians a while - we couldn't give the new owners the satisfaction of that too quickly.
It has taken us about five years to start calling the Coliseum (aka the Colla Bolla) on Mac Curtain Street by its decade old name: the Leisureplex or calling Quinnsworth by its buyer's name Tesco.
'See ya at Roches'
The Patrick Street door has always been one of Cork's most reliable meeting spots where feens met old dolls, mother's met daughters, country people meet each other and anyone who hasn't been to Roches' cafeteria (now christened with the unflattering title 'the Gallery' for some reason) for a pink slice could be open to having their Cork citizenship withdrawn.
Time marches on and while we won't exaggerate and say anyone will shed a tear (after all the building isn't going to be burned down this time) Corkonians will feel a certain nostalgia as the city's relentless growth brushes sentimentality aside to make way for big business.
The most important thing is to acknowledge a Cork institution and the staff that has served its customers honestly and has exported its values outside the People's Republic with great success bringing much needed civility to the ungrateful savages in Dublin, Limerick and Galway.
Veterans of Roches: we salute you.
© 2006 by PeoplesRepublicOfCork.com
[Modificato da Corcaigh 17/10/2006 17.41]