Popular Old Quarter restaurant closes after 14 years’ service
Guernsey has lost one of its favourite restaurants after The Old Quarter closed its doors for the final time.
Owner Paddy Scally thanked the many customers who had eaten in the Mansell Street eatery over the past 14 years.
‘We are incredibly grateful for your support throughout the years, and we want to assure you that this decision was not taken lightly,’ he said.
‘We have treasured each and every shared experience with you all and have appreciated your patronage greatly.’
Mr Scally said there had been a number of reasons why they had decided to wind down the business, which TripAdvisor ranked as the seventh-best restaurant in Guernsey and the fourth-best in St Peter Port, with nearly 500 five-star ratings.
‘We were either going to have to pour money into the business and do a revamp, or stop trading,’ he said.
‘Our kids did not want to take it on and I wanted to take more of a back seat, but that has been really hard as we just have not been able to find staff do that. I was ending up working 14-hour days and you can’t really do that.’
The restaurant closed at the end of June with more of a whimper than a big bang, he said.
‘We had wanted to go out with a big celebration and a big last night to say thank you to everyone, but again we had staffing issues and I decided if it was not worth doing well, it was not worth doing.’
The property has a long hospitality history, including being a wine bar in the 1980s, before becoming Rosario’s in 1993. When chef Rosario Pagliarone retired in 2007, it was reinvented by restaurateurs Mel and Dana Brown as Brown’s. However the restaurant shut suddenly in 2010.
Mr Scally, who had previously been a chef at Simply Ireland, opened the Old Quarter in December 2010. It quickly drew in loyal customers.
Mr Scally added that he had spoken to a number of people about selling the business as a going concern, but had not received any firm offers.
He was now pondering whether, and how, he might return one day to the Guernsey restaurant scene.
‘I’m a bit old in the tooth to be a full-time head chef now,’ he said.
‘But we are looking at options and I’ll still be around.’
Guernsey Hospitality Association chairman Alan Sillett said he was surprised to hear of the restaurant’s demise and wished Mr Scally and his team good luck for the future.
He added that recruitment issues in the sector have eased in the last two years.
‘Population management and Home Affairs introduced three-year permits and these have really helped and we now have a wider staffing pool to choose from,’ he said.
‘However, three-quarters of the time companies still need to recruit through agencies and this can be expensive especially for smaller businesses, who don’t have the economies of scale.’
