New restaurateur set to be announced this week

A NEW operator for an Antrim restaurant premises is to be announced before the end of the week, the Antrim Guardian understands.

Signage has been erected outside the former Jake’s Cocktail Bar & Grill within The Junction complex., saying: “This will get the tails wagging - new restaurant and bar opening soon”- hinting that the new destination may be dog friendly.

In July, the Antrim Guardian reported how the operator of Jake’s blamed soaring rent costs of over £100,000 per annum when it closed down.

A month later, sister restaurant Moe’s Grill, the former flagship outlet in a local family-run chain, also shut.

Both were part of an empire headed by Antrim businessman Denny Clarke, who passed away in 2018 and was succeeded by family members.

Another restaurant in the stable, Redz, rebranded as Fresh Food Hall in 2022 - but that too saw the shutters pulled down in 2023, along with a sister premises in Ballyclare.

Another branch of Moe’s in Magherafelt also closed in 2022.

In a statement released from the ‘Management (of) Jake’s Cocktail Bar & Grill/Moes Grill’, a spokesperson said: “Covid 19 put our business under serious financial pressure, at the time of Covid our restaurant rents were as follows: Moe’s Grill Banbridge £95,000, Moe’s Grill Antrim £70,000, Redz £70,000 Jakes £110,000, a total of £345,000 per annum.

“Our businesses weren’t allowed to trade for two years off and on, but our landlords charged us 100% rents.

“Four years on, we simply cannot afford to pay back the rents for Jake’s, therefore our landlord has taken possession of the building.”

Last year, Denny’s son Darren Clarke founded a competition business, Millionaire House Club, explaining: that ‘Covid really hit the restaurant trade hard’.

The Antrim Guardian revealed in recent weeks that a new operator was poised to sign on the dotted line for at least one of the three vacant premises located in the cluster vacated by the Clarke family at The Junction, as the leisure and retail park continues to grow.

While it will come too late for this edition of the paper, which has been covering the story for months, we understand that an announcement about the new operators will be made on Friday.

Just over a year ago, an unrelated company, Loughshore Restaurants Limited, suddenly pulled out of operating several council-owned premises, owing tens of thousands of pounds.

Back then, a spokeperson said that a pallet of potatoes had increased from £350 to £1,200 and there had been a 350% increase in utility prices.

They also said that and ‘problems with the building from day one proved unsustainable from a financial perspective’ despite the firm claiming to have injected £7m into the local economy between 2019 and 2023.

The Antrim Guardian received a Freedom of Information response which showed that Loughshore Restaurants Ltd owed Antrim and Newtownabbey Borough over £55,000 in early August, when the shutters were suddenly pulled down on the Boathouse and Little Swan at the Gateway Complex at the Lough Shore and at Diana’s Tea Rooms at Clotworthy House in Antrim Castle Gardens.

However all three eateries re-launched just months later, under new operators, including the McLaughlin family, who run a successful stable of restaurants on the North Coast, who took over the franchise at The Boathouse.

Parkgate Farm took over the Little Swann and Mann’s took over the tea rooms at Clotworthy House.