Wineflair take on Curley’s off-licence chain

All 11 stores in the familiar Curley’s off-licence chain have been sold to Wineflair for an undisclosed sum, although the famous family brand will not change in the foreseeable future.

When it was at its height, the Curley’s Wine Cellars chain comprised a total of 13 sotres and employed more than 550 people.

Belfast brothers, Hugh and Sean Kennedy initially opened the Curley’s supermarket chain in Belfast and Dungannon, eventually selling the popular stores on to Sainsbury’s in 2008 although they hung on to the off-licence end of the business.

Their company, HJS Developments, also owns the Kennedy Centre in Belfast and the Oaks Centre in Dungannon.

Wineflair, which has been trading since 1970, was originally based just in Carrickfergus and Belfast. But when its current owners took it over in 2000, it began to expand and today, there are 56 stores in the chain employing more than 300 people.

The deal to take on Curley’s involves 11 of its off-licences in Newry, Armagh, Downpatrick, Bangor, Whitewell, Antrim Road in Belfast, Cookstown, Magherafelt, Ballymena and Coleraine (2). HJS Developments is not affected by the changes.

The roots of the Curley’s supermarket business can be found in west Belfast during the 1960s when Hugh Kennedy set up a grocer’s shop in Andersonstown. Hugh’s nickname at school had been Curley and that’s where the name for the business came from. At its height, it recorded a turnover of £52m a year.

A spokesman for Wineflair confirmed that it had acquired all 11 Curley’s stores for an undisclosed sum after deciding that it would “fit in well with our business”.