Pre-tax profits at the main firm behind the Louis Fitzgerald hospitality group decreased by 3.5pc to €16.34m
The group owns popular venues like Kehoe’s, the Stag’s Head, Bruxelles, The Gin Palace, Grand Central, Quays Temple Bar. An Poitín Stil, The Laurels, Palmerstown House, The Roost, Annie May’s, Carroll’s, The Arlington Hotel and The Louis Fitzgerald Hotel.The group’s underlying profit was up sharply, with pre-tax profits of €16.94m skewed by Government grant income of €5.87m.
Numbers employed by the business increased by 70 from 841 to 911 as staff costs decreased by 20pc from €16.44m to €13.13m. Directors state the group is in a strong financial position and aims to increase profitability through turnover and managing operating costs.
In 1968 a 23 year old Louis Fitzgerald moved from Tipperary to Dublin to purchase his first pub, Fitzgerald’s on Dublin’s Townsend Street which then had weekly revenues of £80. He brought them up to £560 per week. “The first thing bought with this was a red carpet, a luxury item at the time – it was the first carpet that was seen in a pub in that part of the city and there was so much talk about it that people came in just to look at it, and of course they had a drink. Then I opened a piano bar upstairs. I sold it after two years and moved on, but that was the start of the group.”
