The Story of Apache Pizza Killarney and Castleisland

• Long term established Irish family run business
• Gold Operations store for Apache Pizza in 2017
• Best Joint Overall Store in 2016
• Best Overall Store in 2014

This week on the Apache Pizza Blog, Angela and Julette from Apache Pizza – Denjoes will be sharing their story of how Apache Pizza and Denjoes came together in Castleisland and Killarney to create one of the most popular fast food restaurants in Kerry.

Denjoes Family Restaurant was established in 1986 in Castleisland, Co. Kerry by the O’Connor Family.

The original Denjoes consisted of a small shop unit with a kitchen and a small seating area upstairs. It was soon to become one of the most popular and well know fast food restaurants in Kerry.

Denjoes was one of the first fast food shops in Ireland to serve snack/mini boxes with homemade stuffing and coleslaw. To this day customers travel from all over Ireland for the famous chicken boxes. We were also one of the first fast food shops to offer both homemade and regular chips.

Due to this success three years later the O’Connor Family opened their second store in New Street, Killarney. The menu was extensive ranging from Burgers, Wraps, Subs, Fresh Fish and Chips, Kebabs, Chicken Boxes, Milkshakes and Ice Creams. In 2004 Denjoes in Castleisland expanded into a large two storey Fast Food Restaurant outlet as did the Killarney store soon afterwards.

In 2011 we were anxious to include a good quality pizza to our menu. Having spent nearly a year researching pizza franchises, this naturally led us to Apache Pizza. Apache Pizza was the obvious choice as they are Irish owned like Denjoes and serve highest quality pizza at affordable prices.

And so Denjoes Castleisland joined Apache Pizza in April 2012. Having been very successful with Apache Pizza-Denjoes Castleisland it was then decided for Killarney store to join Apache Pizza in 2015. Fun fact! Apache Pizza-Denjoes Killarney store was the 100th Apache store to open in Ireland.

The success of Apache Pizza Denjoes can be attributed to a number of factors:

A unique and innovative menu, commitment to quality in all areas and a strong work ethic is our secret to success. We attribute our success to the amazing team we have in both stores. Between Killarney and Castleisland we employ over 45 people.

Apache Denjoes are very proud to be the main sponsors of many local sporting events and teams. Apache Denjoes is very much a local community based store in both towns. We have helped many local based charities one of our most recent ventures being that of collecting socks for the homeless and raising in excess of €1000 in the lead up the Christmas. Apache Denjoes have been raising funds for the Crumlin Children’s Hospital for many years, raising in excess of €10,000.

Anything goes at Apache Pizza Denjoes, you never know from day to day what can happen in store, from famous celebrities to live chickens and horses on local fair days. Apache Pizza Denjoes enjoys the seasonal holidays and are marked by store decorations, staff dress up, prizes and special events in store during these times.