BUSINESS LESSONS

What is your favourite piece of business advice?

To play fair. When negotiating, leave something on the table. Constantly innovate, using the ability to listen and learn. Don’t sit on your successes — because someone is always looking to eat your dinner. The listening is to your customers and key members of customer-facing staff and the learning is from international trends and success stories.

How can Dublin’s restaurant scene recover from Covid-19?

The saturation of restaurants happened in Dublin city before the arrival of Covid-19. There were 40 planning permissions for more restaurants in Dublin and another 40 or 50 planning applications. I think Covid-19 will probably put an end to a lot of them. Customers and visitors to the city need variety and it can’t just be about certain styles or larger styles of restaurants — we need our smaller restaurants to survive.

People will open and close again, which will do damage to suppliers and producers. Planners need to understand that, too. We are not the answer to retail. The high street needs a complete redevelopment and a rethink of the night-time economy.