Elizabeth Mee and John Hayes have sold their interest in Elephant & Castle, one of Dublin's most popular restaurants. Their business partner, American restaurateur Dr George Schwarz, the main investor in the business, will now take over the entire operation. Owner of the Elephant & Castle restaurant in Greenwich Village in New York, he was Elizabeth's employer when she went to work in New York as a chef in the mid-1980s. When the couple decided to come home at the end of the 1980s, they approached Dr Schwarz with the idea of investing in Dublin. It was a brave move at the time. The restaurant opened its doors in December 1989 on a grim, fairly deserted street in an area that was earmarked as a bus depot. Their menu came straight from the New York restaurant and introduced such exotica as chicken wings, extra large muffins and cafe au lait in a cup that was as big as a bowl.
"The menu was very different for the time," says Elizabeth Mee. "For one thing, we were serving salads that didn't have coleslaw and sweetcorn." The restaurant opened all day from breakfast to dinner - another rarity in Dublin at the time - and for ages it was the only hip, casual place to go. While the Elephant & Castle is now permanently busy it wasn't always like that.
"The first three months were very slow," says Elizabeth, "and I remember we were worried. But then an American crowd from Sullivan Bluth animators discovered us, and other people started to find us, so by April of the following year things really took off."
Then Temple Bar happened. Suddenly the area became artified, gentrified and sold as a major tourist destination. While the restaurant clearly benefited from the influx of tourists, it soon established a regular clientele, and many of the people who frequented it in the early 1990s are still regulars. Four of their original staff are still with them - which must be something of a record in the increasingly transient Dublin restaurant scene.
"I think that the way we look after our regulars has been one of the reasons for our success," says Elizabeth. Indeed, when property developer and Elephant & Castle regular Johnny Ronan bought the freehold of the restaurant and all the adjoining shops in the block two years ago for over £5.5 million (#7.9), it was joked at the time that he was only doing it so as to be guaranteed his favourite window seat.
Since 1989, the couple have been hands-on managers, with one of them usually on the premises, so their immediate plans include an extended holiday travelling around France and Italy with their eight-year-old daughter Emma.
"We'll be looking for ideas for our next venture," Elizabeth, who trained as a Cordon Bleu chef with Alex Gardener, says - adding that it is likely to be food related. They will be around for the next couple of weeks to oversee the transition to a new management team. Apart from their absence, Elizabeth says nothing will really change.
