MAFS contestant and escort row amid $190k debt
Restaurant closure fallout continues
Reports show more than $190,000 is owed to suppliers and staff after a popular Mexican restaurant-bar’s messy closure involving an ex-MAFS contestant and a sex worker.
Tweed Heads’ tequila bar Nacho Baby was opened in September last year by Carly Electric and closed three months later on December 8.
Soon after the closure, owner and ex-Married At First Sight contestant Dan Hunjas began trading ugly allegations with former shareholder and manager Ms Electric, amid claims of unpaid suppliers, staff and rent, plus mismanagement.
Shareholders and staff have alleged Ms Electric as ex-manager had a “lack of experience” - with shareholders and staff blaming her for claims of overdue rent, wages and superannuation.
Ms Electric denied the allegations and said any “misconduct” was the fault of the shareholders and claimed they “removed all rights” for her as a business owner before the launch.
Joshua Davis, 35 was appointed director on December 5 and Mr Hunjas, Bridgette Ford and Mailese Davis, 35 remained shareholders of the company. It went into voluntary administration and was appointment a liquidator on February 21.
Creditors reports showed 59 people including staff, the Australian Taxation Office and suppliers are owed $190,857. Among them, Real Specialists Commercial, Coolangatta is owed $26,250, Silverchef (a business funding commercial kitchen and restaurant equipment) is owed $24,561, and staff combined are owed $6620.
Mr Hunjas said shareholders had “unanimously” voted to have Ms Electric removed as director of Nacho Baby after “serious concerns of alleged financial mismanagement and lack of transparency when we brought our concerns to her”.
“It was only after the shareholders gained access to the business and accounts that the extent of Carly’s alleged financial mismanagement became clear and was much worse than anticipated.”
Mr Hunjas said he had initially hoped to take over and “save the bar”.
“We are still putting the pieces of the puzzle together as Carly has been uncooperative during this process.”
Mr Hunjas’ statement added shareholders recently held a special resolution meeting to vote on liquidating the company.
“We are now in the process of pursuing legal avenues against Ms Electric to recoup our investments,” Mr Hunjas said.
“The shareholders encourage anyone who has had dealings with Carly Electric with unresolved financial matters related to Nacho Baby to contact Avior Liquidators via their website www.aviorconsulting.com.au”.
Ms Electric has denied all the claims around financial mismanagement and added this week: “I dispute the shareholders’ version of events.
“They are part of a systemic process to discredit me and pass collective blame on to me,” she said.
“It is made up of rumour, innuendo, disinformation, and misinformation against my character.
“I have been exploited throughout this process and actively pushed out of the business I created.
Ms Electric did not respond to questions about staff still owed more than $6600.
In December, a staff member who wished to remain anonymous said Ms Electric “seemed out of her depth (running a bar)”.
“We would have suppliers come in looking for Carly and being quite aggressive about being owed money. It kept getting worse,” the staffer said.
“Our suppliers started cancelling orders which put huge pressure on the bar.”
In December, Ms Electric claimed there were business problems the week before opening.
“There were major personality conflicts. They removed all rights from me as a business owner,” she said.
“I wasn’t allowed to make any decision, hire/fire or run the business how I wanted.
“They froze me out from day one. They had meetings without me, undermining my directorship,” she claimed, adding she ran Nacho Baby with “integrity”.
Ms Electric said back then she had worked in hospitality for 20 years, but Nacho Baby was her “way out of sex work”.
“As a single mum, I had no other options but to turn to sex work to survive. Since then, I’ve been able to provide for my family and I have tried to start businesses so I can leave the sex industry.”
In December, she believed the business was “only” $25,000 in debt and “for a startup hospitality business this is pretty good”.