Dominic Macari believes he is a ‘Dub’ more than an Italian at this stage. This didn’t stop him from celebrating Italy’s win over England in the Euro’s 2020 final. Macari and his family moved to Ireland when he was a baby in 1959. His father set up a couple of local fast-food diners in Dublin and Macari was involved from a young age.

Years later, Macari married Irish woman Patricia, and the pair opened a takeaway in Longford, where they were living at the time, called Luigi’s. 

“A lot of Italians would have moved abroad. There’d be a good Italian community in Ireland, Scotland, England, and France. But in Ireland when they came here, it was kind of the traditional immigrant story, the guys set up the business initially and when they started doing well then a cousin would come over to join it and he set up his own place,” says Dario Macari, Dominic Macari’s son. 

Since their first venture in the takeaway space, the family has grown a chain of 22 restaurants called Romayo’s. Dominic, who is the managing director of the chain, and his children currently operate 18, sprinkled mostly around Dublin. The chain employs 280 people across all locations.

“I did think we were onto a winner. As I always say, good food, clean premises, and good service and you will win,” says Dominic Macari.

The success of the family business wasn’t a surprise for his son Dario, who is the operational director of the chipper chain.“There’s probably only one thing Italians take more seriously than football, and that’s food. It’s in their blood. It’s just in the genes. I’ve grown up in it. My dad grew up in it,” he said. 

Dominic Macari remains very much involved in the business and was working in the warehouse before jumping onto this call. However, as the business is now operated by the third generation of the Macari family, his son Dario took the lead for the rest of our conversation. 

Romayo’s has become a household name in Dublin with 25 years of experience in operating takeaways. Dario Macari is confident this experience will benefit the business as more restaurants enter the takeaway space due to Covid-19.

“We’ve always been quite strong for home delivery. Actually, one of the original Romayo’s stores, which is in Dublin 15, has been operating home delivery since 1995,” he says.

Shortly after the first lockdown came into effect, the government granted permission for those in food hospitality to offer click-and-collect and takeaway services, as indoor and outdoor dining was prohibited. With this came an influx of competition on the takeaway market. Yet the Macari family is not worried.

“For some of the newer guys, I do think that they will find some challenges. It is a completely different format. And some of the food just won’t be adaptable for the quick-service sector,” says Macari.

He welcomes new competition and says it will keep the business “on its toes.”

“For any business to survive in the long run, whether it’s a big or small business, you have to accept that if you can’t adapt to customer changes, you’re probably not going to be around too long,” he says.

Macari says Romayo’s felt “lucky” they could keep trading during the crisis, unlike many others in hospitality. However, the business did still feel the impact of Covid-19. The restaurants’ diner side remained shut and its walk-in trade fell dramatically, he says. However, the home-delivery piece supported the business throughout the pandemic.

“Overall, we’re probably looking at a balanced scenario. So, we’d be satisfied with that given everything that’s happened,” says Macari.

From Macari’s to Romayo’s

In the 1990s, Dominic Macari decided to sell Luigi’s restaurant, which is now owned by Peter Volcella, and moved back to Dublin with his family. He decided to combine the Irish love for potatoes with the Italian passion for food and open a couple of eponymous chippers in Dublin.

“Chip shops don’t really exist in Italy. Their chip shop is a pizzeria. So, it’s a very strange thing. I went to school in Italy for a year and it’s just different. I suppose the Irish love for potatoes dictated that,” says Dario Macari.

He and his sister Lydia have always been involved in their family business, but it was in the late noughties that they started to get more hands-on. They decided to open another Macari’s chipper in Belmayne in Dublin in 2010, which in the middle of a recession was a risky move.

“It was an interesting time, as you can imagine, back in 2010. And Bellmayne was kind of a ghost estate as well at the time. And that went very well,” says Macari.

The chipper turned out to be a success and is still trading. So, they decided to open another in the Clongriffin area of Dublin in 2012. It was after this that the sibling duo saw the potential to scale the business.

However, there was a problem that hindered further growth. Macari turned out to be a common name for Italian owners of Irish takeaways on the Northside of Dublin and many eateries had the name written across them.

Sharing the name of the business with others in the trade was a double-edged sword as the number of chippers with the same name did make their business more established, but they were not able to push themselves as their own brand. So, they came up with a new name – Romayo’s.

“We were genuinely worried about it. We would have traded in a lot of our locations under the Macari name. And in fairness, you can go anywhere in Dublin and say ‘Macari’s’, and somebody will know you’re talking about a chip shop. Even at the time when it came to the rebranding to Romayo’s, we would have gotten advice from some guys saying, it might not be the wisest move to move away from such an established name,” says Macari.

The rebranding and the hundreds of thousands that went into it has paid off, though. “I must say we’ve very strong return rates from customers. So, I think it’s safe to say we’re very happy with the rebranding. It’s gone great.”

Nine years on from its rebranding, the chain still has plans for expansion and will open at three more locations, which will bring the number of trading Romayo’s to 22. One of these new chippers will open by the end of summer, says a hopeful Macari, who does not want to give away any more detail.

The chain also recently launched an American-style food bus on the N11 in Kilmacanogue, Co Wicklow while the family waited for construction to continue on their other planned locations. This trial project was the brainchild of Dominic Macari and cost approximately €200,000.

“The end game was that a person could work in one location and the next day go and work at the next location and not notice any difference.”

Dario Macari

The rebrand was not just as simple as changing the name. The business was trying to achieve consistency and, in doing so, it needed to streamline its menu across its eight different trading locations at the time – among other things.

“The end game was that a person could work in one location and the next day go and work at the next location and not notice any difference,” says Macari.

To manage the efficiency of the growing chain, the Macaris knew they needed a central distribution hub and invested in one in Rosemount business park in 2013. At the time, they thought it was too spacious, but have since “grown into it” says Macari. They have since invested in another warehouse.

With the rebrand also came change in the vision for Romayo’s. Like most chippers, they were associated with a staple bag of chips at the end of an evening out.

“Traditionally, a chip shop is where a lot of people say you go to get your bag of chips after a few pints. We were really related to that late-night trade,” says Macari.

The father-and-son duo wanted to move away from this mentality and saw Romayo’s as somewhere families could go and get quality fast food that they could enjoy together. And since the rebrand, early evenings have become the business’s strongest trading time.

Dario and his sister Lydia Macari are now the third generation in the family business. Although Dominic only has two grandchildren so far, the oldest of which is two years old, the hope is that there will be a fourth generation looking after the business.

“It’s always the dream. You want it to continue on,” said Macari.