Malcolm is still lovin’ McDonald’s 24 years on

City Lives – Denise McNamara meets Malcolm McConkey who brought McDonald’s to Galway

Back in April 1987, a new arrival to Shop Street was causing quite a stir. Naughton’s furniture and electrical goods store was giving way to the first McDonald’s restaurant to open outside Dublin and Cork.

But not everyone was enamoured by the coming of the big yellow arch.

Back when he was a humble TD, President Michael D Higgins became most exercised about what he called “the grotesque signs” associated with McDonald’s. These were out of place on Shop Street, he lamented. The multinational should be forced by the council to change the façade.

Jack Eising of Galway Watch wrote to The Galway City Tribune bemoaning the fact that the “smiling cheerful face of Ronald McDonald belies a multinational corporation which exhibits scant regard for the people and the environment”.

The Kinvara resident charged the chain with destroying rainforests in the Amazon for its packaging, keeping third world countries such as Costa Rica poor by owning vast tracks of land to raise cattle and treating workers poorly, evident by an 80% staff turnover in the UK.

The owner, Malcolm McConkey, wrote back the following week to refute the allegations, charging his accuser of using old facts pedalled by naysayers.

Malcolm laughs at the memory, as he sits in the tiny office of the Headford Road outlet that he has owned for two decades.

“I think we had Mickey D there at one stage launching the Seachtain na Gaeilge initiative where all the signs were bilingualised,” he smiles as he recalls how attitudes changed.

The low-key businessman sold two of his three Galway McDonald’s franchises in a bid to slow down, but his enthusiasm – or time spent in the business – has not waned.

He sold Shop Street in 2008 and Westside in 2009, to the regional franchise support manager Aaron Byrne.

During the summer he completed a major refurbishment of the Headford Road branch, which captures hungry punters visiting the nearby cinema complex as well as the two shopping centres.

It seems like a million years ago since he first tried to secure the McDonald’s franchise.

Malcolm, who studied business studies in Trinity College Dublin, put himself through college by working every summer in a big fish and chip shop in the Isle of Man.

“At one stage I was going to go into hotels. I liked dealing with people, there’s no chance to get bored. I ended up in charge of that restaurant, I really got the feel of it. It had a massive turnover. I had already written to McDonald’s asking to be considered for a franchise. As part of my job I used to be in England every couple of weeks and I used to go up to their head office. I really hounded them.”

This went on for a few years before he was informed that McDonald’s had found a suitable site in Galway and planned to open a new outlet. He jumped at the chance of owning a franchise in the biggest restaurant chain in the world.

For more, read this week’s Galway City Tribune.