{"id":81550,"date":"2025-09-23T18:10:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-23T18:10:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/81550\/"},"modified":"2025-09-23T18:10:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-23T18:10:07","slug":"big-mikes-restaurant-in-blackrock-to-close-due-to-insurmountable-industry-challenges-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/81550\/","title":{"rendered":"Big Mike\u2019s restaurant in Blackrock to close due to \u2018insurmountable\u2019 industry challenges \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall b-it-article-body__text--left\">Big Mike\u2019s, the well-known restaurant in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/blackrock\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/blackrock\/\">Blackrock<\/a>, Co <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/dublin\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/dublin\/\">Dublin<\/a>, is closing, with its owner citing \u201cinsurmountable challenges\u201d in the industry. In a post on Instagram, chef and proprietor Gareth Smith said Sunday was the restaurant\u2019s last service.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cThis is one of the hardest things I\u2019ve ever had to write. It feels like failure, but it isn\u2019t. We\u2019re proud of what we achieved, we shot for the stars, poured everything into it \u2013 heart, soul, sweat, tears, life savings, even the house deposit \u2013 but the brutal truth is the maths just don\u2019t math any more,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">He said he was proud of his team and grateful to his guests and suppliers.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cMy final act as gaffer is to go to bat for my staff so they land safely in new homes,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph b-it-article-body__interstitial-link\">[\u00a0<a aria-label=\"Open related story\" class=\"c-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/food\/2025\/09\/20\/we-definitely-cant-keep-increasing-prices-how-to-make-a-restaurant-survive-in-todays-climate\/\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">How Irish restaurants are changing to stay afloat: \u2018Less people are going out. Thursday is the new Friday\u2019Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall b-it-article-body__text--left\">Big Mike\u2019s has been in operation since 2022. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall b-it-article-body__text--left\">In an unusual approach, Mr Smith raised \u20ac400,000 of the \u20ac1.6 million start-up costs for the restaurant by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/business\/2022\/08\/13\/dublin-restaurateur-gaz-smith-raises-400k-for-new-venue\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/business\/2022\/08\/13\/dublin-restaurateur-gaz-smith-raises-400k-for-new-venue\/\">forward-selling vouchers<\/a> to a group of 40 regulars in his other outlets, Michael\u2019s and Little Mike\u2019s in Mount Merrion, both of which have since closed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Big Mike\u2019s, the well-known restaurant in Blackrock, Co Dublin, is closing, with its owner citing \u201cinsurmountable challenges\u201d in&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":81551,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[54662,79,52,18,19,17,33526],"class_list":{"0":"post-81550","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-blackrock-village","9":"tag-business","10":"tag-dublin","11":"tag-eire","12":"tag-ie","13":"tag-ireland","14":"tag-mount-merrion"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81550","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=81550"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81550\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/81551"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=81550"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=81550"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=81550"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}