O Briens Sandwich bars in examinership

Degag · 10-07-2009 2:55pm

stevedublin wrote: »

I'd choose a meal in O'Briens over McDonalds.

I went into O'Briens one day and ordered a Tuna and Swiss Cheese sambo.... The cheese was processed. Go figure.

IvyTheTerrible · 10-07-2009 3:02pm

Degag wrote: »

I went into O'Briens one day and ordered a Tuna and Swiss Cheese sambo.... The cheese was processed. Go figure.

The HORROR! :eek:

Degag · 10-07-2009 3:09pm

IvyTheTerrible wrote: »

The HORROR! :eek:

If i'm paying 6 quid for a sandwich i don't want a slice of calvita in it.

Up de Barrs · 10-07-2009 3:09pm

Very stingy portions.

IvyTheTerrible · 10-07-2009 3:10pm

Degag wrote: »

If i'm paying 6 quid for a sandwich i don't want a slice of calvita in it.

In fairness it would be cheaper then to make your own and you could have whatever cheese you like in it.

(TBH the Horror post was more in reaction to someone expecting gourmet ingredients in any of those sandwich places).

Degag · 10-07-2009 3:20pm

IvyTheTerrible wrote: »

In fairness it would be cheaper then to make your own and you could have whatever cheese you like in it.

(TBH the Horror post was more in reaction to someone expecting gourmet ingredients in any of those sandwich places).

I think everyone is aware that it's cheaper to cook at home mate.

IvyTheTerrible · 10-07-2009 3:24pm

Degag wrote: »

I think everyone is aware that it's cheaper to cook at home mate.

I'm not your mate.

stevedublin · 10-07-2009 3:30pm

Handbags ladies, Please!

bokspring71 · 10-07-2009 3:34pm

claiva wrote: »

Do Centra provide tables and chairs...ie..somewhere to sit down and eat ?
The reason this company are in trouble is because the rentals being charged for the floor space is far too high in the "current economic environment" (love saying that phrase btw) !

Good luck to all of you who eat in Subway.......how quickly you forget.....

Anyone with half a brain can see that if more and more people lose their jobs the country will be in a Depression as well as a Recession.
To see so many comments slagging off an Irish owned company that is in dire trouble is sad to see.
And frankly, its unpatriotic.
Good day sir.

Perhaps it is this attitude, which appears in the above post and which seems to have much in common with O'Briens management, which is the reason for their demise.

The company chose to lease the various premises and agreed the rents. If you are saying that is the decision for their demise, then it was a decision entered into by themselves, voluntarily.

To suggest it's "unpatriotic" to think a sandwich bar is overpriced and of poor quality when compared to its competitors, seems to be an unusual view of patriotism.

Perhaps the reason the company is in dire trouble is because they didn't listen to their customers and didn't adapt to what their customers wanted. Perhaps you have an interesting view as to whether this was patriotic of the company, or unpatriotic?

Either way, it seems to be the reason for their demise and O'Briens will go the same way that Prontaprint did when Brody Sweeny was at the helm of that organisation in Ireland in a life before O'Briens.

Degsy · 10-07-2009 3:41pm

How much does a large sliced pan cost?
Now how much does it cost wholesale?
6 quid a sandwich?
Sod that.

ronaneire · 10-07-2009 3:52pm

Degsy wrote: »

How much does a large sliced pan cost?
Now how much does it cost wholesale?
6 quid a sandwich?
Sod that.

Thought you didn't do sandwiches? :rolleyes:

netwhizkid · 10-07-2009 4:10pm

There was once an attempt to overcharge me by about €7 for a sandwich (for my sister before I'd eat their junk) and a coffee. Who cares about the jobs it is only all eastern europeans who worked there anyway so no Irish effected too much.

GeorgeCostanza · 10-07-2009 4:13pm

latenia wrote: »

The very last time I darkened their doors several years ago:

"Would you like that toasted?"

"Sure, why not?"

"€6.50 please."

"But the price says €5.50."

"It's a euro extra to have it toasted."

Have you any concept of how business is supposed to work? Electricity cost? Labout cost? Why do you think they should offer toasting for free??

The mind boggles.....

Degsy · 10-07-2009 4:18pm

ronaneire wrote: »

Thought you didn't do sandwiches? :rolleyes:

I dont.

I was pointing out the hugely infalted profit margins in these sandwich places...and the stupidity of people who pay 6 quid for two slices of bread and an easy single.

GeorgeCostanza · 10-07-2009 4:21pm

Red Alert wrote: »

Harsh comments? They're charging too much and others have caught up with them in quality. The centra in UCD beats them on both freshness and price. Plus the staff aren't gratuitously rude.

So all the staff in O'Briens are "gratuitously rude"? Or maybe just the ones you've encountered?

Nice one.

Tchaikovsky · 10-07-2009 4:21pm

I think they were only Irish in name anyway because EVERYONE who worked there was a foreigner.

Degsy · 10-07-2009 4:22pm

GeorgeCostanza wrote: »

Why do you think they should offer toasting for free??

Because they're already charging 6 euro for the poxy sandwich and and extra 50 cent for no extra bloody work is pure profiteering.

Any outlet worth thier salt will offer toasting for free,a little thing in business called "customer service" or perhaps "goodwill"..you know,its what keeps the punters coming back.
Why dont pubs charge for ice-cubes by the same reasoning?

netwhizkid · 10-07-2009 4:23pm

GeorgeCostanza wrote: »

Have you any concept of how business is supposed to work? Electricity cost? Labout cost? Why do you think they should offer toasting for free??

The mind boggles.....

Because there is a thing called good business and you have to keep your customers,

Toasting that will be an extra €1
Dollop of Ketchup €0.50
Eating in Charge
Pay for the Toilets
Mineral filled with 80% ice and 20% coke etc.

Ireland was gone to the dogs and I hope every greedy business like this fecks of and goes burst. I would term it the "Ryanairization" where every single thing is charged for, what sort of a business plan is this. Good to see O'Briens crap hit the fan.

TwoShedsJackson · 10-07-2009 4:26pm

GeorgeCostanza wrote: »

Have you any concept of how business is supposed to work? Electricity cost? Labout cost? Why do you think they should offer toasting for free??

The mind boggles.....

It does alright. First up, name another place that charges for toasting two slices of bread.

Second, let's assume the person toasting your bread is on the minimum wage (very likely), call it €8.50 an hour for simplicity. Further we assume it takes one minute to toast two slices of bread.

So, that's €8.50/60 = 14c for one minute, and they don't exactly have to stand over it or continually monitor or adjust any machinery, so cut it to 3c for pushing down a lever, and a cent per slice for fishing it out of the toaster.

Electricity cost for one minute, no idea but you're taking a few hundreths of a cent.

So if we call it 5.003 cent to toast two slices of bread, you honestly think a 1950% markup is ok? You're not in O'Briens middle/upper management are you?

ronaneire · 10-07-2009 4:40pm

Degsy wrote: »

I dont.

I was pointing out the hugely infalted profit margins in these sandwich places...and the stupidity of people who pay 6 quid for two slices of bread and an easy single.

I agree, serves them right if they are willing to pay that price for bread. But I'm sure someone is going to say, "what about overheads, wages blah blah blah"

DublinWriter · 10-07-2009 4:41pm

netwhizkid wrote: »

Who cares about the jobs it is only all eastern europeans who worked there anyway so no Irish effected too much.

...do you think they commuted from Poland to work every day!?!

Nope, they paid Irish landlords and paid Irish VAT on the goods they bought.

It's small-mindedness such as that that has this country in the sh*te.

The gombeen thinking of the drunken Irish slob in a bar in Boston who proclaims that his people 'built this country' (when in reality it was the Chinese and Germans) then moans about the eastern European immigration back home.

Here we all are, dancing about with glee because another indigenous Irish company has hit the wall.

Great stuff lads, I can see us becoming the next global superpower when schadenfreude can be harnessed as atomic energy.

Tchaikovsky · 10-07-2009 4:46pm

DublinWriter wrote: »

The gombeen thinking of the drunken Irish slob in a bar in Boston who proclaims that his people 'built this country' (when in reality it was the Chinese and Germans)

Have you got any facts to back that statement up with?

Dyr · 10-07-2009 4:49pm

DublinWriter wrote: »

It's small-mindedness such as that that has this country in the sh*te.

Ehh, no it was the collapse of our economy, and immigration certainly helped with that.

Degsy · 10-07-2009 4:49pm

DublinWriter wrote: »

...do you think they commuted from Poland to work every day!?!

Nope, they paid Irish landlords and paid Irish VAT on the goods they bought.

It's small-mindedness such as that that has this country in the sh*te.

The gombeen thinking of the drunken Irish slob in a bar in Boston who proclaims that his people 'built this country' (when in reality it was the Chinese and Germans) then moans about the eastern European immigration back home.

Here we all are, dancing about with glee because another indigenous Irish company has hit the wall.

Great stuff lads, I can see us becoming the next global superpower when schadenfreude can be harnessed as atomic energy.

Did people dance with glee when Walshe's spiceburgers went to the wall?

No they didnt because like em or not,spiceburgers are an inexpensive,unique-tasting food that people have come to love.
Also an "indigenous irish company",just like o'briens.
The difference is quality and price.
If spiceburgers were being manufactuered by some perma-tanned gimp with a string of expensive failures behind him at 10 quid a pop then yes,people would be happy when they went bust.

Tchaikovsky · 10-07-2009 4:50pm

DublinWriter wrote: »

Nope, they paid Irish landlords and paid Irish VAT on the goods they bought.

It's small-mindedness such as that that has this country in the sh*te.

Billions of euro have been sent 'home' because of these workers, as opposed to them spending their wages here.

spurious · 10-07-2009 4:54pm

They ate our swans.
I knew 'they' would be to blame somewhere along the line.

Degsy · 10-07-2009 4:58pm

spurious wrote: »

They ate our swans.
I knew 'they' would be to blame somewhere along the line.

Wheras i think "they" could be held largely responsible for the poor customer relations(some eastern europeans NEVER say Please,thank you or kisss my arse when you're dealing with them) the blame for the company going down the tubes must be laid on t he irish owners and thier greed.
I sincerely hope that Cafe en Seine is next.

Sir Humphrey · 10-07-2009 4:59pm

Run_to_da_hills wrote: »

With all the above comments how the fcuk did they survive this long.

Because with the amount of disposable income around most people didn't care about the price or the value for money.

It is still remarkable the amount of people who are willing to pay through the nose for coffee to be taken away in a plastic container and drank at their desk.

But it's not just O'Brien's. It's them all. If you go into Starbucks you pay the more for a sandwich and tea as you would for an entire sliced pan and 80 tea bags in the supermarket. Something has to give.

super_furry · 10-07-2009 4:59pm

GeorgeCostanza wrote: »

Why do you think they should offer toasting for free??

Well how about to keep customers happy, so they continue to be customers, because without customers, you end up is the same ****soup that O'Briens is currently in.

These cowboys had it too good for too long and are now reaping their benefits of taking the customer for granted.

€1 for toasting a €6 sandwich? €1 for a scabby scattering of grated cheese. Sure, they'll pay whatever we tell them. Except, they won't, and you'll go bust.

niceirishfella · 10-07-2009 5:00pm

LOL - it's all DEM FOREIGNHERS fault! Good Lord.

Alias G · 10-07-2009 5:04pm

Rebel021 wrote: »

where will all the asian staff go

Asia maybe??

Sir Humphrey · 10-07-2009 5:09pm

GeorgeCostanza wrote: »

Have you any concept of how business is supposed to work? Electricity cost? Labout cost? Why do you think they should offer toasting for free??

The mind boggles.....

The mind is easily boggled it seems. An extra charge of a euro for toasting a sandwich when the visible "labour" involved extends to nothing more than sticking it under a grill and pressing the button before moving onto the next customers is risible.

You need to appreciate that there is a distinction between the views of people like yourself who "understand how business works" (i.e. you charge for anything you think you can get away with) and the average person's view looking in over the counter who realises that there is actually nothing to toasting the sandwich that could reasonably justify increasing the price by 20 per cent or so. Us sandwich-eating plebs will have to be forgiven if we don't have the business model first in our consideration.

Run_to_da_hills · 10-07-2009 5:12pm

Alias G wrote: »

Asia maybe??

I didn't think there was a labour exchanges in Asia?

netwhizkid · 10-07-2009 6:01pm

DublinWriter wrote: »

...do you think they commuted from Poland to work every day!?!

Nope, they paid Irish landlords and paid Irish VAT on the goods they bought.

It's small-mindedness such as that that has this country in the sh*te.

The gombeen thinking of the drunken Irish slob in a bar in Boston who proclaims that his people 'built this country' (when in reality it was the Chinese and Germans) then moans about the eastern European immigration back home.

Here we all are, dancing about with glee because another indigenous Irish company has hit the wall.

Great stuff lads, I can see us becoming the next global superpower when schadenfreude can be harnessed as atomic energy.

I wouldn't exactly consider O'Briens to be an Irish type of Microsoft or a stable of our economy that we would be crying after.

The majority of the staff who work in their restaurants are migrant labourers and I doubt if there are too many O'Briens workers paying big mortgages etc. either and most during the boom were probably on minimum wage and exempt from most tax anyway.

I never said they were Polish but paying rent to Irish landlords is hardly something that I or the majority of the population are concerned with. These workers paid Irish VAT and Income tax and will now be entitled to avail of our generous social welfare for as long as it keeps going. Alot of them will probably return to their own countries and will probably be glad to see the back of this place for along time if not forever and quite frankly who could blame them.

I am not blaming the staff for the failure of this business but the way migrant labourers were treated here during the boom was dogged, no wonder such staff never smiled, there was no work spirit or having the craic like there is in Irish staffed restaurants as it was all go go by nazi type bosses who suddenly got all uppitity because they had an illusion of wealth but all they really had in reality was mountains of debt destined to failure. Add to it then the fact that if you speak up or step out of line there was ten more only waiting to jump into your job and add a language barrier to boot and you have a recipe for sad workers. I could say there was never one of their staff (or staff in the type of places also) actually happy

O'Briens epitomises everything bad about Ireland the Celtic Tiger, it was bad over priced food with bad facilities and an ever expanding chain fuelled by consumer debt and cheap migrant labour. Weirdly it was fashionable for a teen to pay anything up to €10 (of dopey daddys money) for a vile Frappuccino in Starbucks and whatever the O'Briens equivalent was.

I am not upset or concerned if jobs that employed Migrant labourers are lost as they meant nothing to the Irish economy and helped fuel the giant false economy we had. Eg. Housing estates built and owned by Irish landlords, let out to migrant labourers who were in turn slaving away for a pittance building more houses and apartments and thus the pyramid scheme continued, if we still had access to cheap and easy credit indefinitely within a few years our population would have doubled or tripled and I'd hate to be living here in that sort of property bubble crash. The pity was that the Credit Crunch did not happen sooner and we would have been spared alot of this entire mess that FF helped get us into.

Alias G · 10-07-2009 6:50pm

Run_to_da_hills wrote: »

I didn't think there was a labour exchanges in Asia?

I'm pretty confident you'll find labour exchanges on every continent except antartica maybe.

Degag · 10-07-2009 7:10pm

IvyTheTerrible wrote: »

I'm not your mate.

LOL:rolleyes:

DublinWriter · 10-07-2009 7:11pm

netwhizkid wrote: »

I wouldn't exactly consider O'Briens to be an Irish type of Microsoft or a stable of our economy that we would be crying after.

Yes, crying after as we watched it move eastward to Poland, India or China.

After this country coming through decades of puniary, I'd just like to say beggers can't be choosers.

Please don't hold up the IT industry to me as a glowing nadir of the type of business we should be in, after all, how many US Multinationals who set up call centers here paid their staff much more than a worker in O'Briens got?

As for those Irish higher up the I.T. food chain? Just watch how far your ASP .net and bow-hunting skills will get you when your American employer decides to feck off to India and/or China.

netwhizkid wrote: »

I am not blaming the staff for the failure of this business but the way migrant labourers were treated here during the boom was dogged, no wonder such staff never smiled, there was no work spirit or having the craic like there is in Irish staffed restaurants

Unless you've just returned from Planet Darby O'Gill and the Little People, I can't see how you can say that Irish workers in such restaurants were more or less civil than their Eastern European counterparts.

On the contrary, I found foreign workers to be more polite than their Irish colleagues.

netwhizkid wrote: »

I am not upset or concerned if jobs that employed Migrant labourers are lost as they meant nothing to the Irish economy

There we go. The delicious ironing of an Irish man complaining about immigration.

The flip-side of the argument is that migrant workers contributed to the boom, but obviously you know better than history and would contradict the stories of massive economic expansions of America in the 19th Century and the UK in the 1950s and 1960s.

The fact of the matter is that the economic tide has washed out, we missed our chance, we blew our load, we shot our bolt and revealed our true nature to the world - that we're a bunch of begrudging, shallow, bigoted xenophobic idiots who once looked for salvation in corrupt politicians and bankers and have since restored to looking in tree stumps.

Run_to_da_hills · 10-07-2009 7:27pm

Alias G wrote: »

I'm pretty confident you'll find labour exchanges on every continent except antartica maybe.

Not the same type that dish out €204.30 every week.

Sleipnir · 10-07-2009 7:36pm

Degsy wrote: »

And crepes...dont get me started on crepes!

but......THEY'RE DELICIOUS???!??

Keep your bread, paninis etc, but lay off the damn crepes Degsy. The French created them, and they invented sex so they know a thing or two about making people happy.

Sleipnir · 10-07-2009 7:39pm

GeorgeCostanza wrote: »

Have you any concept of how business is supposed to work? Electricity cost? Labout cost? Why do you think they should offer toasting for free??

The mind boggles.....

It certainly does. You think €1 to stick two slices of bread in a toaster for a sandwich you're already making is to cover electricity and labour costs?!?!

If you make 100 toasted sandwiches a day that's €100. Now tell me, how much would a toaster cost to run for one day; two euro? Five?

They should charge 50c if you want you're sandwich cut it two also for the extra labour it costs.

It's gouging, pure and simple.

robhughes111 · 10-07-2009 7:40pm

Talking of hygiene - I was outside an Obriens in a shopping mall in Malaysia one evening, and there were a load of monkeys running around pxxsing,wxnking and crxpping everywhere. Yes Wxnking :eek:...

Anyway after living abroad and not eating Irish pan for a few months - I went back the next day and had a brown bread sandwich with olive oil, corn, nuts and cream cheese and it tasted simply delightful.

With Obriens gone I am gonna miss monkeys and those Wxnky Sambos

niceirishfella · 10-07-2009 8:02pm

robhughes111 wrote: »

Talking of hygiene - I was outside an Obriens in a shopping mall in Malaysia one evening, and there were a load of monkeys running around pxxsing,wxnking and crxpping everywhere. Yes Wxnking :eek:...

So, it was your typical O'Briens Franchise outlet so

CathyMoran · 10-07-2009 8:37pm

They were overcharged for what they were - I loved foccacia with olives, swiss cheese and pesto but you could not get that everywhere and it cost a fortune - their coffee was average at best and if you were a vegetarian it was almost impossible to get a nice meal in there.

Have great memories of the O Briens in Rathmines though as that was where my husband first showed me my engagement ring (he proposed before hand else where).

nlgbbbblth · 10-07-2009 9:46pm

bokspring71 wrote: »

Either way, it seems to be the reason for their demise and O'Briens will go the same way that Prontaprint did when Brody Sweeny was at the helm of that organisation in Ireland in a life before O'Briens.

well said. Brody Sweeney - f*ck that guy, never liked him.

musiknonstop · 10-07-2009 11:34pm

I tried the O'Briens in Sandyford shortly after it opened and was shocked at the price I paid for a bland slightly stale sandwich. I don't care about the friendliness or otherwise of the staff (you get all sorts everywhere) or "patriotism", but I voted with my wallet and will not return to O'Briens. The news that they are in examinership came as no surprise.

j1smithy · 10-07-2009 11:53pm

When I was in college, Brody Sweeney once gave us a guest lecture on entrepeneurship. He didn't come across as the most likeable person. He was/is a risk taker and has tried and failed with a number of businesses such as prontaprint. He told us his aim with O'Briens was to create a premium Irish Sandwich brand that would be up with the likes of U2 and Guinness. The shops/franchises that were opened all operate from a manual and everything about how they operate is set out in it, including prices. If I recall correctly franchises were not allowed to deviate much from the list price to maintain the premium product image. He believed, at that time, the onus was on the individual operators to make it work rather than being more flexible. I can see how this policy made it quite difficult to operate down the country especially. I can't believe they're blaming rent rates either as he told us he refused an opportunity to open in Dundrum town centre as the rate was too high. This was in 2006/2007.

I for one won't mourn the demise of O'Briens sandwich bar. For a premium product, I felt it lacked the quality that one would expect for the price. I begrudged them the money I handed over very early one morning in Dublin airport as I was very hungry and they were the only place open. Yes, I feel sorry for those that lost their jobs, but the company was incredibly out of touch with reality. In fairness, if the organisation were more nimble it would have forseen the market conditions today and reinvented itself as a premium but inexpensive café. It didn't and it failed... such is capitalism.

Run_to_da_hills · 11-07-2009 1:18am

As the OP, one of the reasons that I started this thread and set up the poll was to see first hand how people in general felt about this food chain.

I am now shocked that there is an an average of an 80% dissatisfaction rate out of nearly 200 posters. The news of its examinership was of no surprise to me and I am sure to many others.

We have heard of people being charged a €1 for toasting two slices of bread. My ex was charged €2 for a buttered slice of bread for a 3 year old child after paying over the top on sandwiches and coffee for two adults. She never went back.

My own personal experience with this company was appalling and was not over food or pricing.

I used to frequent the branch in Ennis right until last year. I enjoyed relaxing on their couch and read the complimentary copy of the Irish Times.

I was in plaster & crutches after an injury and ordered a coffee and pastrie at the counter and then sat down with it. After taking a sip I realized that there was not enough sugar. I requested to the woman that was cleaning tables could she pass me over a sachet, she smartly said that they were on the counter and then went about her business.

Two customers that were seated across from me were horrified at her response and one of them got up and fetched the sugar and gave your one a filthy look. That was the last time I set foot in that branch.

It will be more than just looking for cheaper rent and shutting down a few branches that will keep this company afloat. They will have to seriously overhaul their model, pricing structure and manner to win back the confidence of all those that they have blown away.

honru · 11-07-2009 1:03pm

Don't know how when it changed but I did notice a rebranded O'Brien's, across the road from the Irish Times building in Dublin. Now it's the "Espresso Corner" or something.

Run_to_da_hills · 11-07-2009 1:12pm

f®eak s©enery wrote: »

Don't know how when it changed but I did notice a rebranded O'Brien's, across the road from the Irish Times building in Dublin. Now it's the "Espresso Corner" or something.

Probably one of their former branches that closed down that was fortunate enough to be able to sell on the lease.

niceirishfella · 11-07-2009 1:46pm

Lots of O'Briens place have closed before they wound up in the courts.
Athy, Nenagh or Thurles,High Street Kilkenny just to mention a few.

O Briens Sandwich bars in examinership

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