Five Generations and Counting for Browne’s Irish Marketplace

At 129 years old, Browne’s Irish Marketplace isn’t just one of Kansas City’s oldest businesses. According to the Irish Trade Board, it’s the longest-lasting Irish business in North America—and possibly the most enduring outside of Europe, owner Kerry Browne said.


Her great-grandparents, Irish immigrants Ed and Mary Flavin, got their start selling lace, cured hams and other goods in the front part of their house at 27th and Jefferson. In 1901, they moved Flavin’s Market to a brick building at 33rd and Pennsylvania, where it’s been ever since.

brownes-coupleBrowne has owned the store since 1981 with her husband and business partner, John McClain, but she’s been working in the shop ever since she was a kid, riding shotgun in the delivery truck and stocking shelves.

“I grew up here,” she said. “It’s the only job I’ve ever had.”

She’s the fourth generation to run the business. Today, her sons, nieces and nephews are active in it, too. And look out for the sixth generation: Browne’s niece just had a little boy.

While Browne’s is a neighborhood fixture, a lot has changed over the years.

Browne’s has always been a place where you could buy Irish-made products and groceries. But, when office towers started sprouting in Midtown back in the 1970s, the Brownes started fixing sandwiches for hungry construction workers—which became the foundation of their successful deli and catering business.

In recent decades, the family has added new attractions, like their traditional Irish breakfasts on Saturdays and the annual Browne’s Irish Street Faire. Later this month, Browne’s will host its popular St. Patrick’s Day party.

“We’ve kind of adapted it for each generation,” Kerry Browne said. That willingness to evolve, she noted, is one of the reasons why the store has endured.

(One of the most noticeable changes to the business: its name. That happened after Ed and Mary’s daughter Margaret married James R. Browne, a native of County Kerry, Ireland.)

Has Browne’s ever been tempted to leave Midtown? Years ago, people encouraged Kerry’s folks, Bob and Marjorie, to follow their customers and expand to Corporate Woods or the Northland. But they weren’t interested in leaving the neighborhood.

“Now,” Kerry Browne said, “everything is coming back right around us.”