Caviston's closes city centre seafood restaurant

The Epicurean Food Hall on Dublin's northside is to lose one of its most high profile tenants at the end of this month when Caviston's, the fish specialists, closes its unit. The reason they are pulling out, according to Stephen Caviston, is down to two key factors - a succession of staffing problems and the size of the unit.

His key manager is to depart shortly for Australia, leaving Caviston reluctant to begin the whole process of recruitment and training. On top of that, the shop itself with 550 sq ft has room for only 20 diners plus a fish counter.

"It's a phenomenally busy place," says Caviston. "It would not be unusual for us to do as many as 100 covers in a day and we would turn the tables at least twice during lunchtime."

It's the volume of people that prompted him to look at how much effort he had to put into the place and weigh it up against the number of tables and chairs he had for customers. "I don't think I'd be moving if the place was bigger," he says.

"When I weighed it up, it seemed to me that I would be better putting that same amount of energy into a bigger place, that I'd ultimately get a better return."

When the purpose-built gourmet food hall opened in February 2000, it seemed to be in the most unlikely of settings. Linking Middle Abbey Street and Liffey Street. it was designed as a walk-through mall with 24 open-plan units offering a range of food from crab claws to French pastries. Owned by property developer Joe Layden, it is part of a £15 million (€19.05m) development which includes the mall and the overhead apartment block.

However, since it opened, the Epicurean has proved itself a powerful draw, particularly at lunchtime, for nearby office and retail workers due to the quality and range of food on offer. Its entrance on Middle Abbey Street is not immediately obvious or particularly welcoming but that has not hindered its popularity. Caviston's unit is particularly well positioned at the more attractive Liffey Street entrance.

"It's a different place now than it was when it opened," says Joe Layden, whose other city centre property interests include the South City Market on South Great Georges Street. "We knew that the initial mix would have to be tweaked before we got it right."

Since it opened, the mix has changed and instead of primarily being a giant delicatessen as initially envisaged with some chairs for impromptu dining, the Food Hall is now, according to Layden, "more a food mall". The communal dining area has been greatly enlarged, and there are now 10 separate kitchens operating in the mall.

"That has meant that we have had to put a new level of investment into the place by installing great extraction systems and upgrading the wiring."

He hopes to let the Caviston unit to another fishmonger but acknowledges that there are perhaps only three or four with the same level of expertise as the current tenant who pays an annual rent of £28,000 (€35.55) plus an annual service charge of £10,000 (€12,697).

Joe Layden also hopes to extend the Epicurean's opening hours. "There is a huge pre-theatre market that we are not tapping into, so we are looking into the possibility of opening until 10 p.m. or so."

Meanwhile, Stephen Caviston will be concentrating his energies on the family's well-known Glasthule operation. He says the move into the city centre has been a major learning curve for him.

"We're known in Glasthule but when we moved into town, we felt we were an unknown quantity," he says. "Over the year and a half, we've proved that there is demand in town for the type of food and fish that we do."

It has also, Caviston says, reflected positively back on the Glasthule operation. "It's been really good PR for us. 'I really hope that someone good goes in there," he says, generously. "The business is there and I hope that someone can do it even better than we did."