*James Leonard and Conor Mullen. Photograph: Saibh McDermott.
AN ENNIS man is behind the opening of Galway’s first coffee drive-thru.
Conor Mullen has partnered with James Leonard to open Jack & Harry’s Drive Thru Coffee which is located on the Tuam Rd in Claregalway and employs ten people.
A two-time Oscar Traynor with Clare, Conor has teamed up with James who himself has won multiple Sligo SFC titles with Tourlestrane for the new venture. The duo both have worked together for the past thirteen years with IrishJobs.ie.
Jack & Harry’s is a name with great personal meaning for the duo, Conor outlined. “I came up with the name a couple of years ago. Me and James were chatting about it, James’ eldest son is called Jack, my only son is called Harry, we were chatting about if we ever got a site and what we’d call it. We said Jack and Harry’s has a nice ring to it, it is the two sons, people keep saying Ben and Jerry’s but they’re not aware of where it comes from”.
Other business interests of the duo include Conor owning Hustle Fitness which has facilities in Ennis, Shannon and Galway while James owns Coláiste Laichtín, an Irish college on Inisheer.
James’ commute up and down from Sligo to Galway showed “there was never anywhere healthy to get something quick and easy which wasn’t bad for you,” Conor explained. “I’ve always had an interest in it, it is always something I’ve wanted to dip my toe in, a café, restaurant, pub scene because I worked in pubs all up along as a teenager so I’ve a bit of a background in it. We said that the drive-thru model had potential, my wife Rachel has travelled in Australia and there’s plenty of them over there so it was a model we always had in our heads”.
Securing the right site has been a challenge, Conor told The Clare Echo. “It is very hard to get the right site and get planning because you have to get the Councils on board and TII are very difficult but they have to be to make sure everything is safe. We had gone for a couple of sites and had been refused, there was one site halfway between where James lives and Hustle Galway, we went for it a year ago and had a look at it, the family who own the site were brilliant, they got on board with what we were trying to do and we got our engineer on board, the planning application took about six months but eventually we got there”. This investment was “well over six figures,” he detailed.
Helping their planning application was their positioning off-road “which saved us,” Mullen admitted. “We’re in a small commercial park with a barbers, a DPD sorting centre which is brilliant for us, a car sales garage and a fast food outlet. 10,000 square foot is the yardage size that we have, when people hear of drive-thru coffee they think of a horse box on the side of the road, with regards to us we had to go in there and we used the Coleman Brothers local builders are absolutely brilliant, they came in and did all the building work for us, electricity and water from scratch, we had to do all the groundworks with stone going in, all our tarmac had to go in, the paving. You think it is a quick and easy job but it is far from it, the cost was definitely eye-opening for myself and James. The beautiful thing for us is unless we get forty cars in the queue at the one time the traffic won’t go back to the main road, that was the key factor towards us getting planning having a huge car park that cars have to drive through to get to us. It is safe and really accessible. The traffic in Claregalway is horrendously bad so it is helped massively with us, people decide to come get their breakfast with us, they’ll have their porridge and coffee while they sit in the traffic so it has worked in our favour”,
Similar models have become popular in Ennis, Inagh, Lissycasey and Coonagh but this venture is unique to the Galway market. “It is the first drive-thru which does fresh sandwiches. Since we’ve opened, there’s been a few replicas to try take us on but our model is unique in the sense that we have multiple staff on at any given time, all our food is cooked from scratch so there is actually a kitchen in the forty–foot container”.
Though only open a month, Mullen is already looking towards expanding the model. “We do want to go for more locations. We’re always on the look-out for more locations but it is very hard to get them these days, if anyone is reading this article and they are a business owner with land or feel they could potentially lease a site, definitely reach out to us”.
An emphasis is placed on fresh and healthy food with porridge cooked every morning, the offering also includes overnight oats and sausage rolls “cooked from scratch” with four types of sandwiches available from lunch plus acai bowls and some sweet treats. “Everything is done from scratch, we’ve had chefs in for a week to train all the staff so in fairness the staff are really well trained, it is not one of the ones where it is pre-packed food like the Ryanair model where it’s all microwaved, everything is freshly cooked. The Claregalway, Tuam and East Galway community have really bought into it, we’re only opened a month now, we’ve had thousands of customers through the door, we’ve had plenty of teething issues and we’ve made loads of mistakes but we’re learning from them”. Open from 06:30 to 18:30 from Monday to Friday and 08:00 to 16:00 on weekends, activity has been busy in its opening month.
Quality is of immense importance in the offering, he stressed. “It has to be really good quality, James is massive on really good quality fresh food, he is a foodie, he is a big coffee head, he wants fresh ingredients, good ingredients, really takes care of what goes into his body, we always wanted that aspect of things being fresh and using local producers, it also has to be cost effective and at the same time people’s lives are only getting busier and busier, James has three young kids, I’ve a young lad, we know how tough it is if you are going from camogie training to basketball to soccer, you haven’t got ten minutes to jump out and go do the mini-shop before getting back into the car. From a speed perspective, and to make life easier we thought this could work, let’s offer really good value, really good quality food and make sure it is nice and quick, people can get in and out within three to four minutes and get on with their day. That was the ethos behind it, everything we’ve done even with the gyms, James owns Coláiste Laichtín on Inisheer, there’s always a big emphasis on quality so I’d like to think with the gyms we have a good quality product in good quality facilities, we just wanted to make sure we can put that into the drive-thru coffee aspect of it”.
Beacon Recrutiment founded by Clarecastle’s Kieran McDermott were the “one-stop shop” for hiring and sourcing the chefs who provided training. Jack & Harry’s are supplied by Calendar Coffee who also oversaw the barista training. “They came in and gave all our staff barista training, it was fairly intense, all the guys if they left us could go work in a local restaurant or pub but hopefully they won’t, they are all well-trained. It was another eye-opener trying to abide by all the food safety, it was our first time dealing with that and it was all encompassing, we’re up to speed with it now but I didn’t think it would be as intense as it was, there was an awful lot of work on that, that is where James and myself were probably a bit naïve but we got there,” Conor reflected.
Mindset shifts towards health and wellbeing has led to increased opportunities for businesses in the fitness and coffee space. “2025 has been a tough year, we’re very busy thank God but the costs have definitely increased with the minimum wage increasing and the knock-on effect is all the salaries go up, you’ve the auto-enrolment for pensions coming in on the 1st of January, the cost of living for everyone is going up so I’m conscious it is a double-edge sword and I’m conscious that I want my staff really well looked after in all the gyms and Jack & Harry’s but at the same time you want it to be cost effective for your customers so you’re always trying to get that balancing act.
“The trends have changed in that people are not going out every Friday, Saturday and Sunday like they were ten or fifteen years ago and having heavy drinking sessions, people’s mindsets have changed and COVID changed a lot of people 100 percent where in Ireland historically it always was you’d work Monday to Friday to go out on the weekend, it has definitely changed. The gym and fitness scene in general people thought it was a fad, it’s not and it’s here more for people’s mental health than their physical health these days so when it comes to opening new facilities and gyms you will still hear the older generation say ‘it’s a fad’ but it’s not, it is a big industry and it is here to stay. I know people would prefer to spend €30 to go have a couple of coffees, acai bowls and sandwiches, go walking with their friends on a Saturday morning with the dogs rather than going out with their friends on a Friday night having ten pints and waking up with a stinking hangover,” Conor added.
