Dingle's Fish Box serves record profits

The Fish Box, Dingle

The family-owned firm that operates the well-known Dingle restaurant and takeaway, The Fish Box, last year recorded average post-tax profits of more than €11,000 per week in a record year for the business.

During the busy Summer season in Dingle, queues of tourists waiting outside the restaurant on Green Street for it to open are a regular occurrence, and accounts show that The Fish Box Restaurant Ltd recorded post-tax profits of €597,910 for 2024, which works out at an average of €11,492 per week.

The post tax profits of €597,910 for the ‘sea to fork’ business last year are more than a four fold increase on the post tax profits of €137,576 for 2023.

The 2024 profits are also a multiple of the post tax profits of €107,144 for 2022 and €105,179 for 2021.

The profits for 2024 resulted in the company having accumulated profits of €1.04m at the end of last year.

Cash funds declined from €253,080 to €185,448 as the company re-invested in the business with the book value of tangible assets rising from €1.13m to €1.73m.

Numbers employed last year by the company increased from 45 to 48.

The Flannery family business only opened in 2018 and it has picked up multiple awards since and featured in several Top Places to Eat in Ireland guides.

The surge in profits in 2024 coincided with the company significantly expanding its operations last year after completing a €400,000 investment in the business.

The Fish Box firm has used the investment to put a food truck on the road, introduce a fresh fish counter and add solar panels.

The company received €200,000 in grant aid towards its investment under the Brexit Blue Economy Enterprise Development Scheme, as recommended by the seafood taskforce and implemented by Bord Iascaigh Mhara (BIM).

The Fish Box offers both a takeaway and sit-down option with an outdoor area and with the investment, the restaurant expanded from 20 to accommodate 100 customers indoors.

Thirty-one year old Micheál Flannery has a majority share in the business and at the time of the grant-aided investment last year, he said: “We fish from Dingle and land our catch in Dingle which then goes directly to our restaurant in Dingle.

He said: "There is no travel. I know who catches the fish, who handles it, who fillets it, who cooks it and finally who eats it. We can literally offer a sea-to-fork experience.” Micheál’s great grandfather started fishing back in the 1920s, followed by his grandfather, Paddy Flannery, and then his father, Michael took over from his own father.