Mosta’s town square - sans the ongoing works and construction - is popular with residents and tourists alike, with the basilica taking pride of place at its central and most important monument.
Anyone passing through is likely to notice a distinctive glass-panelled building set on the corner of two busy main roads, home to Cauchi’s Stationery, and a landmark in its own right.
What few may know is that behind the establishment is a long history of a family’s hard work, far sightedness, and eye for opportunity.
WhosWho.mt caught up with Raymond Cauchi, the eldest of the three brothers managing the store, who shed light on the long and winding road that has established Cauchi’s as a household name in Mosta and beyond.
The story starts in the early 1950s, when his grandfather, Emanuel, operated a barbershop and tailor on the premises.
“He was famous for his Maltese caps. People would come from all over to have them made to order,” he recounts.
However, Emanuel’s son, Joseph, did not follow on his father’s footsteps, preferring to earn a regular salary as a government clerk.
“My father Joseph left the place vacant for about 10 years,” says Mr Cauchi. “No matter how many people offered to buy the lease off him, he refused. Once, he even turned down Lm15,000 – big money at the time, especially for a lease!”
Joseph Cauchi kept paying the rent patiently, waiting for his three sons to come of age and see whether they would have any use for the place.
“He always said that our future, and our ability to make a living, was more important than any sum of money.”
Mr Cauchi left school at 15 and enrolled at the Polytechnic, taking up a course in accountancy, with the potential of the space seemingly destined to be unused.
The lucky break, for the family and the space, came when another stationery further up the road, Gianni Vella’s, was closing down.
“The woman who ran the store at the time approached my father and suggested passing along her business, her standing orders, to our little store – if he wanted it.”
Presented with the opportunity, Mr Cauchi suggested a middle path: “I offered to start opening the shop in the evenings, after 3pm, as I was not sure how it would turn out.”
To get the new shop going, they turned to the old furniture left there since the premises’ days as a barbershop and tailor.
“We got my grandfather’s old wooden bench, where people would wait until he served them, and used it as a counter and display, putting some paper, writing pens, that sort of basic stationery.”
And the newspapers?
“We kept them in the glass cupboards he would keep the clothes he tailored in.”
Humble beginnings, then.
“Yes,” laughs Mr Cauchi. “It was like a farmhouse!”
Just a couple of months into the fledging stationery’s operation, things were going well, and Mr Cauchi decided to leave his accountancy course to run the shop full-time, eventually being joined by both of his younger brothers.
He credits Miller Distributors for the encouragement – and the financing – to turn the space into a proper stationery, recalling the leading importer and publisher telling his father: “You’ve got a good thing going there.”
When the building came up for sale, the Cauchi family bought it, and built the three-storey edifice that stands today.
A celebration of the Feast of the Assumption of Our Lady, with Cauchi's logo visible in the background / John B. Vincenti
For around 30 years, the first floor housed a café while the second had a restaurant, both being relatively innovative additions to the still-rural village.
“We were the first in Mosta to offer cappuccino,” beams Mr Cauchi.
He has now spent 53 years working at Cauchi’s, and the space is still changing.
“We started getting old, and saw that staffing the cafeteria was becoming more hassle than it’s worth at our age,” he says. “So we closed that down and now rent the first floor to a Chinese restaurant.”
Meanwhile, the photography business offered by the stationery took off, so the second floor is now used as a light studio and printer.
Asked how the family has withstood the test of time in an ever-changing market, Mr Cauchi does not hesitate to say that the mantra that “the customer is always right” is “in our DNA”.
“You cannot let yourself by pulled in every direction, but as far as we can, we prefer to have happy customers who can keep returning for business.”
A man walks in front of Cauchi's Stationery / John B. Vincenti
Despite the success, the future is uncertain, with Mr Cauchi frank about the challenges presented with the succession of a family business.
“As brothers, you work things out, but we’ll be moving into a new generation of cousins. Things are different now.”
While expressing his wish to see Cauchi’s remain a presence in the Mosta square, he said the family is actively looking at the best options before it to maintain a strong business.
The resplendent Mosta Basilica as the town celebrates the feast in a previous year, with Cauchi's glass-panelled facade visible / Aiken Zerafa
And why the focus on having it remain in its current spot?
“Well, isn't it obvious? Mosta is in my heart!” exclaims Mr Cauchi - a feeling that surely resonates with many of the town’s famously proud residents.
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