New-look Burgess celebrates 170 years' trading in Athlone

"To the future, and to success." With these words, Senator Feargal Quinn led a champagne toast at the Burgess of Athlone Department Store on Friday morning last. The Superquinn founder was performing the official launch of the revamped Burgess. The celebrations also marked the 170 years of trading which have made this Ireland's oldest department store. Mr Quinn was no stranger to the store, having visited on a number of occasions in recent months while filming for a new RTE series, 'Retail Therapy'. The series, which will air in the new year, spotlights six businesses as they receive tips on how to survive the economic downturn. Speaking to the Westmeath Independent last week, Mr Quinn said that the store's Managing Director, Rosie Boles, and her father, store owner Ian Boles, were very open to his advice on how to improve their business. "Rosie and Ian were just so responsive to any suggestions I made, and I think Rosie has done a smashing job here. The shop looks so well and I think the people of the midlands will be very proud of it," he said. "When I came in first I noticed that many of the customers appeared to be older and I realised those that had established a trust and a confidence in Burgess were very good customers. They were regulars. But I had the impression that a tourist or a young person might think 'oh, that doesn't suit me, it's not my sort of shop.'" Following the store's recent makeover, he said: "Anyone coming to Athlone - whether it's tourists, young people or anyone else - will see the store from a distance. It looks like one big store, and they will be attracted in. If they don't find what they want here then they're either very fussy or they've no money!" When asked about the challenges facing businesses at present, Mr Quinn recalled visiting a shop with his father in Dún Laoghaire in the 1950s. "My father was talking to the man in the shop and said 'how's business?' 'Oh,' the man said, 'it's not like it was in the old days. It's very hard now'. "My father came out of the shop and said he could remember his own father using those very same words about business in the 1930s - 'it's not like it was in the old days, it's much tougher now'. So I believe business has always been tough, and I was around in the 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s. I've seen the very tough times and the tough business environment that's existed and yet there were people that succeeded even during the tough times, just as there were people who failed during the boom times." Ms Boles said it was her hope that the RTE series would highlight changes which have taken place at Burgess in recent years and that this would lead to the store increasing its customer base. "We have modernised over the past couple of years, but we found that message quite difficult to get out to the public. Sometimes people make the decision - "oh, that's not a store for me" - and they never go in again, whereas, in fact, we have evolved quite a lot inside the store. We needed to say 'we have changed'. It's a very hard message to get across, so when RTE came up with this idea and put it to us I was immediately very interested." She added that Burgess currently has "the nicest stock that I've ever seen in the store." "We have a younger menswear and ladieswear buyer working with us now and we really have moved on substantially in all areas. Of course, the backbone of everything is customer service and quality," she said. Last Friday's festivities at Burgess began when the store opened at 10.30am for a celebration sale. The first shoppers through the door were greeted with champagne. Some of the store's fashions were modelled by Mandy Maher and models from Galway's Catwalk Model Agency, while the winner of a €2,000 fashion makeover was 29-year-old Sarah Coyne from Tullamore.