We were thrilled to feature an amazing health store called Open Sesame in the Short and Sweet section of our Autumn 2019 issue! Their philosophy – ‘eat well and local, reuse, don’t waste, live well and keep moving’ – is one that deeply resonates with us. Read on to learn more about them.
Open to Health
The store with a touch of magic
Open Sesame Healthstore opened its doors on Parnell St, Ennis, Co. Clare, in August 1988. The shop was put together on a shoe-string budget, with shelves made from sawmill off-cuts, on a street prone to flooding! Dried goods were initially hand packed and labelled in-store, often by the young children of the store owners, Sally and Hugo.
Having spent years keeping goats and hens, foraging for food, baking homemade bread and growing vegetables, staying connected to the land was very important to Sally and Hugo. The store’s very first supplies included local raw goats’ milk, eggs, home-made sour dough and locally grown vegetables. Thirty-one years on, that hasn’t changed – fresh, local produce still holds pride of place in the store.
The second branch of Open Sesame opened in Gort, Co. Galway, in 2001. Sally’s son Leroy took on a bigger role over the last decade, making use of the new technologies available to create a unique website and implement systems that enable Open Sesame to be even more customer focused.
The general manager, Rhys, was born the very year the Ennis store opened, and is a breath of fresh air with his innovation and enthusiasm. Open Sesame’s team of young staff share a fountain of knowledge of the health food industry, paired with a passion for fitness and healthy living.
After all these years, Open Sesame’s message is the same – eat well and local, reuse, don’t waste, live well and keep moving!
