February 16, 2011
By Staff Reporter
By Andrew Bushe
DUBLIN — A Dublin restaurant that was operating profitably and was even included in the Michelin Red Guide has closed because difficulties retaining staff made it impossible to continue.
The Mange Tout Restaurant, which opened on Baggot Street 16 months ago, found that employees continually moved on for other opportunities despite the fact that waiters were earnings £400 a week in salary and tips.
Tara Cremin, who ran the restaurant with her husband, chef Brian Beattie, said they decided last week to close after the problem worsened in the last six months.
"You can’t get loyalty, you can’t get professionalism," Cremin said. "They don’t even give you notice, they just walk out or don’t turn up. What we see as fine-dining waiting staff are going to be a thing of the past."
Cremin said that on one Saturday night last November, none of the staff turned up. The couple had to phone 42 customers and tell them not to come because they had no one to serve them.
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"One customer actually rang me back because he didn’t believe us and thought we were messing," Cremin said.
She said the longest they had kept a member of staff was six weeks. They had kept going from November until Christmas with staff borrowed from the L’Ecrivain Restaurant.
"We closed for eight weeks over Christmas to try to re-staff," Cremin said. "We reopened on 28 January and since then we have had two sets of staff."
She said one waiter had joined them to get fine dining experience and had promised to stay a year. He left after eight days.
"Brian and myself went into work every single day worried was everybody going to come in," Cremin said.
"Basically not everybody came in and toward the end we saw another Saturday night coming like what happened before and we said our customers and our business are too important to let this happen again."
She said that over Christmas, they checked with other restaurants to find out what they might be doing wrong. They shortened the hours and increased the wages for the eight staff.
"A waiter would probably come out with almost £400 a week, including tips and wages. I have come from the computer industry and I think that is good money," she said.