05/10/2026
Listowel Food Fair returns from 5th to 9th November this year.
A town that has been holding a Food Fair for more than 30 years has, at the very least, put Listowel on the food map of Ireland.
The Food Fair began in 1995 and has become part of the rhythm of the town. Every November, producers, cooks, restaurants, visitors and people who simply enjoy eating descend on Listowel for a few days.
But the interesting thing about the Food Fair is that it does not arrive in a town that suddenly remembers food once a year.
There are cafes, bakeries, restaurants, delis, takeaways and food shops are already here and all over Listowel, most within a few minutes walk of one another.
And there are more coming.
Renovation work is currently under way on Church Street for a new cafe due to open in the coming weeks.
I like this.
Not because Listowel has been crying out for somewhere to get a coffee. It has not.
But because somebody has looked at a street already well supplied with food, coffee and independent businesses and decided there is still room for another one.
So, with the Food Fair approaching, this seems as good a time as any to put a case forward for coming to Listowel for the day.
There is only one piece of advice.
COME TO LISTOWEL HUNGRY. LEAVE THE AFTERNOON FREE.
A perfect day starts with “we’ll just get a coffee” and ends several hours later with a book, a toy, or something wrapped in a bakery bag and a discussion about where to have dinner over a b**r..
Listowel is very good at that.
Yes, you can come for the writers, the independent shops, the galleries, the river, the theatre or the music.
But somewhere between parking the car and deciding you should probably head home, you will need to eat.
Happily, the town has given this considerably thought to meet these requirements.
Church Street, William Street, Main Street, Market Street, Charles Street and the Square offer enough choices to make deciding where to have lunch a legitimate part of the day.
Go a little further towards Clieveragh and there are more.
The sensible approach is to arrive hungry and not make too many promises about what time you will be home.
Coffee is a good place to start.
At Allie’s on Charles Street, the baking has a story behind it. Founder and baker Allie O’Neill developed her American style cinnamon rolls after time spent in the United States, eventually introducing them in 2023 after a long period of recipe testing.
There is something reassuring about that level of effort being put into something most of us will eat in just a few minutes.
Lynch's Bakery & Coffee Shop has another kind of history.
It occupies part of a former racing pub and still carries memorabilia and caricatures from that life. Mary Lynch comes from a baking family, and there is something very Listowel about a place where the building itself has already had a career before you ordered your coffee.
There is coffee among the plants at Thyme Out in Listowel Garden Centre and Cafe, a cafe stop beside the town’s literary history at Castle View Café in Kerry Writers Museum, and specialty coffee at Retrospect Coffee in Clieveragh.
Different places for different mornings.
By lunchtime, the problem becomes more serious.
Lizzy's Little Kitchen grew from Lizzy Lyons’s market stall into a cafe and then into its larger premises on Church Street.
An idea found customers. The customers came back. More room was needed.
Lizzy brought experience from catering in London, but what she built is very firmly of Listowel: homemade food, familiar faces and a courtyard that makes leaving immediately seem unnecessary.
Further along Church Street, John R's Foodhall combines a foodhall, bakery, deli and Café Hanna.
Its family history runs through generations of trading, and it is the sort of place where you can go in for lunch and come out carrying something for later.
Mag's Deli Listowel fills another important role entirely.
Hot meals, sandwiches, wraps and food to take away.
There are days when lunch should be served on a plate.
There are other days when the correct container is a paper bag.
For a table and a little more time, there is EABHA JOANS Restaurant on Market Street, the Maid Of Erin Cafe & Grill on Main Street, Christy's Bar "The Well" on the Square and the Horseshoe Bar & Restaurant on William Street.
The Horseshoe has been in the hands of Jerry and Margaret Ann Behan since 2005.
Allo's Bar Bistro Townhouse, Listowel goes back further again. Helen Mullane and Armel Whyte opened it in 1995.
Businesses that last that long usually have one thing in common.
People come back.
Allo’s is also worth looking at before the food arrives.
Its interior was put together using salvaged materials, including flooring that once belonged to the London Stock Exchange.
It has since been used for a rather more enjoyable kind of speculation.
Mainly whether you should have another course.
Its cooking and seafood have been recognised nationally, including Georgina Campbell’s Casual Dining Restaurant of the Year award in 2015.
Elsewhere in town, other stories have found their way onto the plate.
Gapo's Restaurant opened in 2016 through Artur Gabrielyan and Liene Druka, bringing Armenian and Latvian backgrounds into the mix. The restaurant itself is named after Artur’s grandfather.
Mario D’Alessandro, originally from Gallinaro in Italy, opened Mama Mia in 1991.
Neither story began in Listowel.
Both are now part of it.
Dough Mamma adds wood-fired pizza and some serious character.
Pad Thai brings Thai cooking to Church Street, while Royal China and Nanjing give you still more choice.
You can sit down for the evening or collect something and go home.
Both seem entirely reasonable.
And any article about eating in Listowel has to make room for Jumbo's Family Restaurant.
Dermot O’Mahony founded it in 1983.
For generations of people, Jumbo’s is not simply somewhere that sells food. It is somewhere they remember being brought as children, going with friends, or stopping after being in town.
Places can accumulate that sort of history without anybody formally deciding that they should.
Mr Kebab & Grill Listowel, Chicken & Curry Club and Apache Pizza are part of the picture too.
So are the café and deli at Garvey's SuperValu Listowel, the food counters at Corrib’s two locations, Subway and Insomnia on Market Street, and the food and coffee offering at Applegreen.
Not every meal needs a story.
Sometimes you want a long lunch.
Sometimes you want a sandwich.
Sometimes there are children involved and everybody simply needs to be fed before diplomacy fails completely.
Listowel can manage them all.
The The Listowel Arms Hotel gives you something different again: a meal looking towards the River Feale and the racecourse.
It is not a bad place to decide that there is no particular hurry.
Of course, eating is only part of the reason to come.
Between meals, there are books at Woulfe's Independent Bookshop, toys at McGillicuddy's Toy Shop, art at Olive Stack Gallery, Kerry’s literary history, the river, the Town Park and streets that reward looking up every now and then.
There is a surprising amount of detail above the shopfronts.
St John's Theatre & Arts Centre and Mike the Pies give you reasons to stay into the evening.
This is what happens when you visit Listowel.
A coffee gives you time to decide what to do next.
A shop holds you longer than expected.
Lunch becomes necessary.
Somebody tells you there is something on later.
And the time you had planned to leave quietly stops being relevant.
That is what makes Listowel work as a day out.
Not one attraction.
Not one restaurant.
Not one shop.
It is the fact that everything sits close enough together for one thing to lead naturally to the next.
And perhaps that is why the Food Fair belongs here.
For a few days in November, food moves right to the centre of the conversation.
But it was never very far away in the first place.
I would happily tell anybody who comes through our door to go and eat somewhere else in town, browse the shops, visit the galleries, walk by the river and see what the rest of Listowel is doing.
That is not particularly generous of me.
It is in our interest too.
The more reasons people have to spend a day in Listowel, the better it is for everyone.
Come for lunch, if that is all you have planned.
Be careful what you promise to get done afterwards.
