McGrath says Mint consumer spend fell by 60%< Sunday, May 10, 2009 By Corinna Hardgrave Irish restaurants dropping their prices are in danger of cannibalising their own business, according to Dylan McGrath, the former head chef at failed Michelin-starred restaurant Mint.
The Dublin restaurant, which failed to reopen after Christmas, held a creditors’ meeting last week, and has debts in excess of €200,000. McGrath said that consumer spend at the Ranelagh restaurant had fallen by up to 60 per cent. Takings in the restaurant fell from €7,500 a night to between €2,000 and €3,000.
‘‘I could have lived with the banks shutting down, I could have lived with investment shutting down, but once the spend goes as well, it’s hard to continue trading,” said McGrath, who was not a director of the business, and was one of the creditors.
‘‘I don’t know how the rest of the restaurants are finding it, or whether they’re prepared to be as honest as I am.
‘‘I have less to lose these days, so I can be quite open about it and say that it dropped as much as 60 per cent.” He said that the profit was now gone from restaurants, particularly at the high end, and that ‘‘people are just trying to keep their doors open’’.
He said that the reason Mint could trade for so long was because it had a low rent. ‘‘Some of the guys who have dropped their prices dramatically are doing it because they are really in trouble, because they’ve got to pay their rent,” he said. ‘‘I think a lot of the restaurants today have dropped their prices so much, they are in danger of cannibalising their own business,” he said.
McGrath said that, at the high end of the restaurant market, there were high overheads to maintain consistency. ‘‘The answer to the recession for me was not to start sacking a couple of chefs or get rid of a couple of waiters, because that was just going to affect the consistency and diminish what we’d established.”
In a bid to reverse falling revenue, McGrath introduced a €55 tapas menu - which included two glasses of wine - and extended his trading hours. ‘‘We were doing seven hours of service, as opposed to four to five. The demand was there – the waiting list was there on a Friday and Saturday - but if people are not prepared to spend anymore, it’s just not going to work,” he said.
‘‘There was a real feel that people didn’t want to be seen to be spending, especially on wine.”
He said that the long-term plan had been for Mint to move premises, maintaining the same business partner, Gerard Courtney.
‘‘The business needed to grow. You need to be doing 55 covers, 60 at the weekend. I spent the last year focusing on getting new premises for the restaurant, but with the economy the way it is now, that is no longer a viable option.”
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