Belgo: Belgian-style mussels and beer restaurant in an off the beaten track spot in Temple Bar has had a tough year. The premiseshas an interior glass roof and an imposing glazed frontage. Below: Belgo is situated on Sycamore Street opposite the Olympia's stage door
Belgo, the Belgian mussels and beer restaurant chain, has announced that its Dublin branch is still falling short of original targets and is not expected to make a positive contribution to profits until next year.
The restaurant, off Dame Street in Dublin's Temple Bar, traded poorly in its first year and from that low base has posted growth of 20 per cent for its second year.
The announcement of Belgo's sluggish start in Dublin was made at the same time as the publicly owned company announced the closure of its New York restaurant after only two years' trading. The Dublin and New York restaurants opened at the same time.
Belgo's failure in New York was blamed on a combination of a poor downtown location and a small shopfront, which restricted the restaurant's visibility.
A spokesman for the group said that the reason for the slow start in Dublin is "that it has taken quite a while for Irish people to latch on to the Belgian concept".
However the company also admits that their location here is "unusual".
For unusual, read difficult. While Sycamore Street is, nominally, in Temple Bar, it is very much off the beaten track - on a dark street with little passing trade.
But it does not suffer the same problems as its New York counterpart in that its extensively glazed frontage dominates that section of the street.
At over 8,000 sq ft and with a fit-out costing £1 million, (€1.27m) the 180-seat restaurant is one of Temple Bar's largest to date. The building was once home to Libra Design, and Dublin-based architect John Smyth has made great use of the former sewing factory's lofty ceilings and grand sense of space.
The restaurant is mid-range with an average spend of £17 (€21.60), and the menu is built around the classic Belgian meal of beer, mussels and chips.
Denis Blais, who founded the Belgo chain nine years ago, is still involved with co-ordinating the appearance of each new restaurant, and he collaborated with Smyth on the contemporary, stylish look of the Dublin branch.
Belgo's slow start on the thriving Dublin restaurant scene is yet another high profile example that formulas working elsewhere are not guaranteed automatic success here. Earlier this year, Manchester United's Dublin restaurant closed after only a couple of months.
