Donnybrook Fair sees 50% fall in pre-tax profits

THE latest accounts from Donnybrook Fair – the south Dublin supermarket and restaurant chain – have shown that the business had a 50% fall in pre-tax profits for its most recent financial year.

A pre-tax profit of €295,305 for the 12 months to the end of January last compared unfavourably with a profit of €611,808 for the previous year, according to the latest set of financial accounts that were lodged with the Companies Registration Office (CRO).

Operating profit for the year amounted to €432,119 – which was down from a figure of €759,978 at the end of January 2008.

Gross profit for the company’s last financial year was up, marginally, from €6.42 million to €6.47m; but administrative expenses rose by nearly €1m to just over €6m.

The Donnybrook Fair business empire – in its current guise as multi-location upmarket convenience store, with one additional restaurant facility – started in 2002 after its owner Joe Doyle upgraded the eponymous standard convenience store on Morehampton Road in Donnybrook.

The upstairs restaurant facility was added to that flagship store in 2004 and in the last three years expansion has come about via two more Donnybrook Fair stores opening on Dublin’s Baggot Street – later doubling in capacity – and in Greystones, Co Wicklow. The latter opened just last year.

The company currently employs about 200 people across the three shops.