Blazing Salads, Dillinger's, Assassination Custard and Brasserie Sixty Six in Dublin, Church Lane and Sage in County Cork and Barnacles in Galway.
These are some of the latest restaurants to join a list of more than 600 restaurants forced to close in Ireland over the past year, in what is seen as increasing strain on the country's roads and tourism offering.
Blazing Salads, a pioneering vegan and vegetarian restaurant, was open for 37 years, surviving several economic crises and pandemics, only to close, blaming inflation, VAT increases and customers working from home.
The Restaurant Association of Ireland (RAI) says an average of two restaurants, cafes or catering businesses close each day, dealing a blow to the country's independent hospitality sector.
In Cork, Ireland's food capital, celebrity chef and founder of the world-famous Ballymaloe Cookery School, Tarina Allen, was outraged.
“I am 76 years old. I had never protested in the streets in my life, but I got up at 6am to catch the train from Cork. “I was determined to support this cause,” he said.
“People all over the country are very angry,” Allen said. “They feel abandoned and unappreciated. What they want is to make a relatively decent living so they can pay their employees, invest a little in their businesses, and educate their children. I mean, it's not a second home in Caribbean type things. Survive day by day.
“It's not just whining, it's frustration. “What all restaurateurs want is fair support and recognition for what they do for Ireland Inc,” he said.
A 50% increase in the VAT rate, from 9% to 13.5%, will leave food businesses struggling to survive, says RAI.
The rate was lowered to 9% during the pandemic, but restaurateurs say it's too early to reimpose the higher rate, as rising energy bills, rising food costs, the Cost of living and work from home crush consumer demand. .
A man filmed at last week's protest said he had been in the business since 1982 and had “never seen it this bad.”
They expected the government to respond to their campaign to reverse the VAT increase given the healthy state of the country's finances, pointing out that VAT was only 6% in the 1980s, which had been stagnant. But when Finance Minister Jack Chambers published his budget on October 2, there was support for a €4,000 energy bill, but no movement on VAT.
Allen says the lack of budget empathy is a bitter pill to swallow, coming so quickly after a European Court ruling awarded the Irish Treasury €14 billion in back taxes from Apple.
“This country is doing very well. They tell us we are on the crest of a wave, but I can tell you it doesn't look like it at the parish level.
Others are alarmed by the impact the restaurant crisis is having on Ireland's high streets and wonder whether independent establishments will be replaced by more profitable chains such as Pret a Manger or Carluccio's, which are already in Ireland.
Barry Murphy, who runs Murph's, a small fish and chip restaurant and takeaway in Durrow, Tipperary, says “vape shops and charity shops” are already popping up in small town cafes.
Stephen Buckley, whose family owns five steakhouses and a butcher shop, FX Buckley, a Dublin staple since the 1930s, is equally concerned about the emptying of cities.
“People don't come to Ireland for the weather. They come for the culture and restaurants and cafes are part of any city. If the restaurants collapse, the culture will collapse and people will stop coming to the city.
Buckley says companies like his are able to weather the crisis because they have a “back office” scale that other smaller operators don't have.
Murphy said last August's VAT increase, which meant they had to pay an extra €25,000, was not compassionate to those struggling on the meager profits they now operate on.
“Every quarter you get a request, and if they don't get what they're asking for, you run the risk of the sheriff knocking on your door and literally evacuating your facility,” he said.
“Even if you ignore VAT, it's very difficult, you go month by month,” he said.
Allen accuses the government of failing to see the bigger picture.
“Irish food has gone from being a land of corned beef and cabbage in the last 30 years” Fresh, high-quality milk and meat are big sellers for tourists.
“People feel despised. “They think the government doesn't really understand or appreciate how important the sector is and what it does for the Irish people, for visitors, for Ireland Inc,” he said.
With two tables and seating seven, Assassination Custard, right next to the State Department on Kevin Street, is one of Dublin's most extravagant offerings, with queues out the door at lunchtime and rave reviews. Co-owner Gwen McGrath says it wasn't VAT that put them out of business, but the difficulty of running a food business.
“Feeding people is a small percentage of that. The rest is all the things you have to do in the background, accounts, health and safety, as well as managing people's expectations,” McGrath said.
