Coffee giant to open Galway City premises

The world’s second-biggest chain of coffee shops, Costa Coffee, is set to open a premises on Quay Street.

Within the next week, MBCC Foods Ireland – which has a franchise agreement with the Costa Coffee chain – will lodge a planning application at City Hall for new doors and signage on the former KC Blake’s premises.

The plans include the removal of the kitchen from the premises, the fit-out of the entire ground floor as a coffee shop, new timber doors on Quay Street and Kirwan’s Lane, and new branded signage.

Costa has almost 1,500 coffee shops in Britain, as well as 800 franchised outlets overseas, and vending facilities in around 2,500 locations, making it the second-largest chain in the world after Starbucks.

The chain has 39 coffeehouses in the Republic of Ireland and 13 in the North, employing 450 people, with the West of Ireland being specific target for expansion.

MBCC Foods – which also operates the KFC and Pizza Hut franchises in Ireland – is owned by Raju, Sundeep and Savitri Tuli from Edinburgh.

KC Blakes restaurant shut down a fortnight ago after twelve years in operation, and a liquidator is set to be appointed next Friday.

The operating company, KC Blakes Ltd (owned by Bernard, Mary and John Casey) is understood to have debts in the region of €400,000, and accounts for the year ending January 2012 show a deficiency in shareholders’ funds of €360,000.