Three of Charlie Chawke’s pubs shifted gear from the pandemic last year despite a €2 million write-down in the value of properties adjacent to a popular south Dublin watering hole the publican bought for a record sum in 2005.
Accounts filed with the Companies Registration Office for the Milltown Inns group of pubs – which includes The Dropping Well in Milltown, Dublin 6; The Orchard Inn in Rathfarnham, and Aunty Lena’s in Adare, Co Limerick – reveal a sharp rebound in revenues last year as the pub trade recovered from the pandemic.
Turnover at the company, in which Mr Chawke’s children hold ownership stakes, almost doubled in the year to the end of October last to €10.2 million.
Staffing levels, meanwhile, recovered from 94 in 2021 to 143 last year at the group of businesses, which employed more than 350 staff before the pandemic hit.
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Losses after tax narrowed from €228,750 to €190,740 over the 12-month period. However, Milltown Inns would have traded in the black were it not for a €2 million property impairment charge recognised in the financial year.
The charge relates to a decision to write down the value of two residential properties on the site of The Orchard Inn, acquired as part of the overall sale to Mr Chawke in 2005.
[ Charlie Chawke: ‘I want to hold on to everything’Opens in new window ]
The write-down was considered “prudent”, according to sources familiar with the matter, given the high price attached to the houses at the time of purchase.
The veteran businessman bought the pub and two houses on a two-acre site near the top of the property market for €22 million in 2005 in what was then the most expensive pub acquisition in the history of the State.
When the market collapsed a few years later, the debt overhang from the acquisition left the business in difficulty and Milltown Inns had legacy debts of more than €19 million as recently as 2019.
But the company’s debt pile had shrunk to just €6.2 million at the end of October last, according to the most recent accounts.
Speaking to The Irish Times in 2021, Mr Chawke said he did not regret buying The Orchard, “only how much I paid for it”.
