Fallon & Byrne’s new owner: ‘Last year we sold about €1m worth of hampers’

“I haven’t eaten here since the menu changed recently enough, but I know everything is really good,” jokes Jimmy McLoughlin, as we are offered menus in the restaurant on the first floor of Fallon & Byrne, the popular food venue on Exchequer Street in Dublin 2.

“We had a 20th anniversary celebration recently and the food was amazing that night.”

Jimmy and his wife Rosie McLoughlin have just acquired Fallon & Byrne for an undisclosed sum, having been investors since 2021 and having also been directors of the company.

The pair own Rosie & Jim, which makes premium breaded chicken products and is 30 years old itself with turnover that is “heading on for €40 million” annually and with ambitions to grow that substantially. More of that later.

Given the various cost pressures and other challenges that we hear about regularly in the Irish hospitality trade at present, some might think McLoughlin is mad to take on a business like Fallon & Byrne, which has had its own well-publicised trading struggles over the years.

“I might be, but the thing is that this is so much more than a restaurant – and I’ve been involved for five years. So I know the moving parts fairly well, and I know the trajectory it is on. I wouldn’t be too keen on a stand-alone restaurant. But Fallon & Byrne is very different.”

Effectively, there’s six businesses under the one roof at Fallon & Byrne, he says.

“There’s the restaurant, a wine bar down below, there’s events [it hosts about 100 weddings a year], there’s the food hall, we have manufacturing [a bakery and ready meals], and there’s online.

“And we’ve got the wine bar down below ... that’s flying, we’re doing something like 1,200 covers a week. The restaurant is doing quite good and from here on in to Christmas, this will be flat out.”

McLoughlin orders the shoulder of lamb, and I go for the rib-eye of beef with Cafe de Paris butter. We pass on starters but the chef sends out bowls of delicious celeriac soup, and we get a basket of fresh crusty bread.

Since opening, Fallon & Byrne has struggled to operate consistently in the black. It was in examinership more than a decade ago, had to retreat from an expansion plan, and went through a financial restructuring five years ago that led to the McLoughlins becoming investors.

They were brought in by the late businessman John Delaney, co-founder of the Beacon Medical Group, who was auditor to their chicken business and who pieced together the restructuring. They bought the business from his widow Edel Delaney, who continues to own the building that houses Fallon & Byrne.

Over the years, John Delaney had suggested various investment opportunities to the McLoughlins, Fallon & Byrne being one of them.

The business returned to profit last year, and McLoughlin credits Delaney for achieving the turnaround. “John turned that corner. He had a passion for the business. Anyone else would probably have pulled the plug and there’d be a hotel here now,” he says.

“He turned around the staffing and the management structure. They hired Vincent Belingard, ex Harrods, and he’s been here about three years. Terrific guy, he’s built great teams here.

“But I hear what you’re saying. I used to wonder myself if this was a lost cause,” McLoughlin says.

A near €400,000 loss in 2024 was turned into a modest profit of €26,000 last year, and McLoughlin says by the end of this year a pretax profit of about €350,000 will have been achieved. “It’s on the up and has turned the corner, which is some turnaround,” he says, matter of factly.

Revenues last year amounted to about €14.2 million. This year’s outcome will be determined by the key trading period over the coming weeks up to Christmas. If that’s successful, turnover this year will exceed that of 2025, he says.

The food hall at ground floor level generates the most income, but has the “lowest margin”.

“It’s hard to make margin in retail. The wine cellar would be a very good revenue-spinner, and a decent margin. It’s good value. Weddings and events, very strong margins. This restaurant is very good when it’s busy, but it’s not busy enough.”

On the day we meet there’s a nice vibe in the restaurant at lunchtime – but it’s less than half full.

We have ideas for improvement, but nothing drastic. This restaurant hasn’t had money spent on it in years so there’s a major refurb to be done [next year] to help it do better

—  Jimmy McLoughlin

“I’ll tell you what’s really good... hampers at Christmas time. Corporates and individuals. Last year, we sold about €1 million worth of hampers. We’re going to buy about 100 of them for our own business [Rosie & Jim]. What can be more special than a Fallon & Byrne hamper, ha!”

We switch to talking about Rosie & Jim, a successful Dublin-based maker of premium breaded chicken products.

McLoughlin said it achieves a “reasonable margin”, but declines to divulge its profitability. “It’s a good margin, which you need to fund growth,” he adds.

Accounts filed for an entity called Quality First Limited, which operates the Irish business, show it achieved a pretax profit of €194,000 on turnover of €32.6 million last year. Its revenues rose by €10 million during the year, a clear signal of its growth trajectory.

The company is building a “huge extension” at its Bluebell processing site that will give it capacity for “three times what we have now, and the whole cost of it would be about €20 million”, McLoughlin says.

“We’ve scaled now and can drive it on. We’re doing a lot of business in Germany, have an awful lot in England and have other new markets.

“We can definitely get it to €100 million turnover, definitely, within 10 years. We’re tracking €40 million [turnover], we’re building a factory that can triple our throughput. We have so much foundational work done that we’re only scraping the surface in places like Germany. When we do that in Germany, it will be so much easier to do it elsewhere in Europe.”

According to McLoughlin, the company is selling “pallets of product every month into the canteen” of the Porsche motor group. “Why can’t we do that with 20 other German companies?” he asks.

“We’re also edging our way towards Scandinavia, and we could be doing four times more in Britain than we’re doing now. The demand is there. We’re going to have to fight hard for it and it won’t just land in our lap. But it’s there.”

[ Fallon & Byrne owners say business now ‘self sustaining’ after loss of €564,046 in 2023Opens in new window ]

Its chickens are sourced from Poland (Irish ones are too expensive he says, adding that the Polish ones meet all quality standards), and chicken schnitzel and chicken kiev are two of its best sellers.

“We started off selling to butcher shops, and kiev was always huge for us. We do a very good chicken kiev,” he adds, without a hint of boasting. “It’s probably our hero product.”

Among large customers, in food service he name-checks Costco in the UK, Sysco and Bidfood, while Morrisons, the British supermarket chain, and German retailer Kaufland are also taking its products.

In Ireland, you’ll find its products in all of the major retailers and in many butchers’ shops, which he says remain a “huge block” of its business.

McLoughlin grew up on a farm in Laois. On leaving school, he started his working life securing a trade as a butcher, working for his uncle Joe in McLoughlin’s Butchers in Ballyfermot, Dublin.

“I did an apprenticeship with him, and after about four years went working in meat factories and boning halls. Pat McLoughlin is my cousin, and he trained me in Ballyfermot – and that’s where I met Rosie [a Dubliner]. She worked across the road.”

At 25, McLoughlin went to Australia for a year, working in chicken businesses and discovering an idea for value-added products that could be sold to butcher shops here and busy kitchens around Temple Bar.

“I came back from Australia and the rest is history,” he says.

This is McLoughlin’s first media interview. He describes himself as an “operations person” with his “head down”, while his wife Rosie is more a “people person”.

“I’m not even on Facebook or LinkedIn. We have social media [in the business] of course, but if someone told me they’d spotted us on social media, I wouldn’t be able to look it up. I hate all that. I’m a self-confessed dinosaur – but I know the value of social media to the business.”

Looking to the future at Fallon & Byrne, the new owners have committed to repaying the €2 million in warehoused debt to Revenue that accumulated from the pandemic.

“The business has turned a corner and the money was given, and all we’re doing is paying it back. To be fair to Revenue, they’ve given us a good deal to pay it back over 10 years, interest-free.”

He says there is also an agreement to buy the building that houses Fallon & Byrne from Edel Delaney. “Part of our arrangement is that we’ll be buying the building in three years. It would have been too much to take in one bite. The building really has to go with a business like this.”

What’s his wider vision for Fallon & Byrne?

“We have ideas for improvement, but nothing drastic. This restaurant hasn’t had money spent on it in years so there’s a major refurb to be done [next year] to help it do better.”

As he tells it, it will be a case of marginal gains.

“We want to maximise what we have. It’s to improve, improve, improve where we can. No drastic changes. In years to come, we’d look at extending the building. There’s plenty of room in the yard at the back, and in time we’ll do a major extension. But for the next few years its trying to help all the departments do better.

We’re very fortunate that with a successful business, we have the money to put in and we’re not in a hurry to get it back. We’re in it for the long term...

—  Jimmy McLoughlin

“Working smarter, a bit more volume, less waste, more people through the door. All of that makes a big difference. It could be 120 weddings a year or 150 weddings a year. But it won’t happen overnight.

“The website needs a rebuild. A good website will drive volume to the store, and the weddings and the hampers. It’s not about just throwing money at it. It’s about having good common-sense ideas about how to spend the money to its best effect. And having a good team in place to do that.

“The brand can be so much better. I think the future is very bright for this business.”

Given his commitments to expanding Rosie & Jim, will he really be hands on with Fallon & Byrne?

“I’ll spend a day a week here, which is quite hands on. This will take me away from the core job [at Rosie & Jim] and force me to delegate a bit more, and have a bit more variety in business.

“We’re very fortunate that with a successful business, we have the money to put in and we’re not in a hurry to get it back. We’re in it for the long term... there’s not going to be any fast money made here. It’s going to be more expenditure and more expenditure, but in time it will be good. We’re in no rush.”

The future, you might say, is rosy, and Jim.

CV

Name: Jimmy McLoughlin

Job: Cofounder of Rosie & Jim (with wife Rosie McLoughlin). The couple now own Fallon & Byrne in Dublin

Lives: Ballybrittas, Co Laois

Age: 56

Hobbies: “In my spare time I like to walk the dogs, go for a run, or read a book. I watch a lot of TV. My favourite show would be the Sopranos, but I only got into it about three years ago. I’d spend a couple of hours every night watching TV.”

Something we might expect: He loves chicken. “I could always see the attraction of chicken, the consistency of it, the versatility. The lean meat and health thing. And the sustainability of it with its carbon footprint – which is so much lower than any other meat. It wouldn’t be a case that I can’t bear looking at it any more.”

Something that might surprise: “I wouldn’t call myself a big foodie, not in a Michelin Star kind of way. I’m not gonna start talking about 100 different cheeses... I probably have a bit of Dubliner in my fridge at home. I’m a big fan of quality, natural, good food, always have been. We [himself and his wife] love food, we understand food and we believe in keeping it simple.”