The Dairy - Bistro,Butchers & Farm Shop

The Dairy occupies the site of the Gleno Dairy Produce Company, a cooperative creamery established in 1933 to market milk from local farms. Owner Sandra McDowell, who has run a 150-acre beef and sheep farm at Gleno with her late husband Robert for more than thirty years, opened the current bistro, butchers and farm shop in April 2019. The business sits alongside Dairyside Stores, a hardware and animal feed shop founded more than seventy years ago by Robert's parents, Alex and Agnes McDowell. Meat is prepared by hand in the in-store butchery and pastries are baked on site each morning. Sandra McDowell was named Business Person of the Year at the Larne Business Excellence Awards for reviving the site. The farm shop trades daily; the kitchen closes earlier than the retail counter.