Rua Deli

Spencer St, Castlebar, Co. Mayo, Ireland

After more than 10 successful years running Café rua in Castlebar, County Mayo, the Mc Mahon family realised that their expertise in sourcing quality ingredients from local food producers could be put to great use in a new venture in the town. Rua Deli was born in September 2008 and stocks groceries and hand-picked produce from Mayo and neighbouring counties. Overlooking the ground-floor deli – which has a striking, original mosaic floor as its centrepiece – is another café (00 353 94 92 86072; caferua.com).

Who runs the deli?
It’s very much a family business. My mother Ann, myself and sister Colleen Mc Mahon all look after different areas of the business, but as with all ventures, particularly catering, we all end up doing bits of everything. We have great staff who keep the kitchen rocking, knocking out amazing breads, cakes, salads and chutneys every day. We’re also extremely fortunate to have an excellent manager, síochfradha Kelly, whose knowledge and passion for food is truly awe-inspiring – we simply couldn’t have done it without her.

What local products do you stock?
From Mayo we stock Cuinneog Country Butter made in Balla, and LoTide seaweed products, as well as Carrowholly raw-milk cheese made by Andrew Pelham Byrne in a small village outside westport. we have the retail exclusivity for a mature version of ‘old russet’, a wonderful and much-loved local cheese, and for sheridan’s cheeses and produce, also in County Mayo. To accompany these we have a fantastic quince paste made by our local jam company, westport Grove, which is very popular. You won’t find this anywhere else. From headford in Galway we source bags of stephen Gould’s finest mixed-leaf selection – excellent, locally grown salad leaves with a bit of bite. They are the perfect antidote to the usual limp supermarket offerings. We also sell Connemara’s awardwinning smoked salmon and honey-roast tuna from County Galway. In addition to all this, we sell our own rua tomato and apple chutney, basil, garlic and lemon mayonnaise, pickled cucumbers and tomatoes, and are adding to our product line all the time.

What do you make on the premises?
All our salads, soups, sandwiches, cakes and breads are made in the shop. our brown soda bread and our fruit soda are really good and sell very well. we always have delicious freshly prepared food to take home, such as lasagne, Parmesan crumbed chicken, savoury tartlets, braised red cabbage, hummus, pesto and more. We also have a ‘cake away’ business and have seen a growing demand for all our baked goods, from roulades to trifles and apple pies.

What are your plans for development during 2010?
We’ve only been in the retail business for 18 months, so there is much we want to do in our current premises to become the best delicatessen that we can be. we want to foster more local producers and offer them an outlet for their goods, as well as extending the rua range. we are also involved with a wonderful group called Good Food Ireland (goodfoodireland.ie) through which we inform people about where they can find good food as they travel around the country. As part of this we host a ‘Meet the Maker’ event once a month, where a great artisan producer will be in store for the day giving people tasters and telling them all about their food.