A glass half full

Gerry Carlile, an entrepreneur whose late entry into the hospitality trade has transformed a number of well-known venues across west Belfast, is keen to curb what he says is a persistent trend towards negativity in the industry locally and which, he believes, prevents it from realising its true potential.

Speaking after a breakfast event which he organised in the west of the city recently, Gerry Carlile said that while there was evidence that the economy was recovering, the SME sector needed to work together to secure those gains and ensure a “healthy and hopeful” future for business in the province.

“I really feel that there’s too much doom and gloom around and far too much negativity,” he told LCN. “You would think that the world was coming to an end in terms of the economy, but my experience has been that business is undergoing a turn. That’s reflected in the general statistics that are available and my thinking is that rather than complaining about the situation, we need to try and showcase the fact that there are many very successful and innovative businesses out there.”

Gerry was speaking following the ‘Showcasing the Recovery’ breakfast event which he organised at 26West Bar and Grill in the Kennedy Centre late last month. The event – which was addressed by the Deputy First Minister, Martin McGuinness and Hastings Hotel Group director, Julie Hastings, among others – was attended by a broad cross-section of business people from all over Belfast.

They heard Martin McGuinness say that Northern Ireland was undergoing an economic revival, with trends in employment, consumer confidence and exports all in the ascendancy:

“We have many small businesses displaying the determination and ambition which will drive the economy as part of our recovery,“ added the Deputy First Minister. “The Executive is listening to the business community and is doing all it can to remove the barriers they face, improving the business environment and making it easier to fulfil their potential.”

That’s the core of the message that Gerry was attempting to convey with his event – and both he and his burgeoning hospitality portfolio reflect the truth of his assertion that hard work and differentiation are the keys to business prosperity.

Belfast-born Gerry has been a successful soccer agent for many years and his client list features a host of well-known players including Niall McGinn, Kyle Lafferty and Anthony Stokes. However, in recent years, he has developed a strong interest in the hospitality trade and in 2010 the opportunity to realise that ambition emerged when the Failte restaurant in west Belfast came onto the market.

“The restaurant had been closed for about a year before I bought it, but I knew that there was a market in west Belfast for a good, mid-range restaurant like this, not a high-end place with white tablecloths, but a nice restaurant with good value food and high standards,” Gerry told LCN.

Gerry bought the 80-seater venue in partnership with one of his clients – Scottish Premiership and Northern Ireland international player, Niall McGinn. The pair opened the restaurant again on what Gerry admits was “a shoestring budget” involving little more than a clean-up and some re-decoration, but under the supervision of new head chef Dominic Hanvey, the revitalised restaurant has thrived.

A year later, in April 2011, Gerry expanded again, this time taking on the 113-year-old Rock Bar in Belfast with former Celtic player, Paddy McCourt, as a partner. This venue is an institution in the west of the city – built in 1901 using the same bricks as the City Hall, its cosy interior is reminiscent of the famous Crown Bar in the city centre, complete with little booths and a snug, and Gerry has implemented little in the way of physical changes since taking the premises on.

“We knew where we could take it before we bought it,” he recalls. “We took on a good, sound Falls Road bar and in the space of two years, we’ve turned that business around and I would say it’s one of the best bars on the Falls Road at the minute.”

Remarkably, that wasn’t the end of Gerry’s expansionist ambitions for 2011- in September of that year, he took on the Whitefort bar and restaurant on the Andersonstown Road in partnership with Jim Conlon.

Then there was a lull in acquisitions which lasted until April last year, when he opened 26West Bar and Grill inside a former restaurant unit at the Kennedy Centre in west Belfast, again, in partnership with Niall McGinn:

“I think it’s one of the best positions we could be in in Belfast,” he remarks. “The Kennedy Centre is 100 per cent occupied and around 100,000 people pass through here every week…We invested a six-figure sum to get 26West the way that we wanted it but it has been doing very well for us right from the start.”

Gerry also paid tribute to fellow-director, Sean Duffy, who he said had been instrumental in the company’s success.

Gerry and Jim Conlon were back in the news in May of last year when they bought the old Devenish site on Finaghy Road North in Belfast with the intention of opening a brand new hotel. However, Gerry has since stepped away from that project in order to concentrate on his latest acquisition, a nightclub in Glasgow called ‘Light’, which he bought in October.

He currently employs 60 people in his Scottish business, but he says that those are jobs which could have come to Northern Ireland had it not been for the licensing laws here, which he describes as “archaic”.

“I deliberately decided to invest outside Northern Ireland,” he says. “I didn’t want to be involved in night clubs here because they need to change the laws. Our club in Glasgow is rammed from 1am until 3am on a Sunday morning, the city is busier than here and people are able to make money whereas at home, everywhere closes down at 1am, it’s old-fashioned and there was no way we were going to invest in Northern Ireland, we just didn’t want to take the risk. The old laws that we have here need to be changed.”

Gerry says that at present, his various businesses are “in great shape”, and while he readily accepts that many other traders across the country are in much less fortunate positions, he believes that it is possible to instigate positive change in any business regardless of the circumstances:

“What I would say to people is that if the model you are using isn’t working, then it’s time to change it,” he remarks. “The days when you could simply open your shutters and expect people to come in have gone. You need to have a real offering for people now if you want them to give you their business and if you don’t have that, then I don’t think you’re going to survive in the tough environment that we are in. We need to be more innovative, I don’t want to be telling people how they should suck eggs,  but I think that if you’re going to be in business now, then you need to be different and you need to give people exactly what they want.”

As for the future, Gerry believes that it is essential for the Executive in Northern Ireland to be given increased control of its own financial affairs:

“I think one of the most important things for the country now would be if we can get our hands on the levers of fiscal power,” he continues. “We also need to see a strong Assembly that is capable of giving good leadership. We need to see politicians stepping up to the mark, they need to look to the future and they need to get out in front and shake people’s hands. The community needs to be able to have confidence in its Assembly, they are our legislators and therein lies the challenge. They get credit for the distance they have travelled, but society in general is demanding a faster pace of change.”

Gerry believes that if greater fiscal powers were restored to Northern Ireland, one of the most pressing issues from a hospitality perspective which could be addressed is the inequality in VAT rates between Northern Ireland and the Republic:

“They pay nine per cent in the south and 20 per cent up here, so someone with a restaurant in Newry is at a distinct disadvantage to someone else in Dundalk just nine or 10 miles away.

“If you can get power to change things like that into the hands of our Assembly, then we’ll be able to help our own local businesses in a real and meaningful way,” he adds.