Cafe Sol: expanding

CAFE Sol, the Dublin coffee and sandwich bar chain, swung into the red last year.

The company posted a pre-tax loss of €544,182 in the financial year to 31 March 2009 compared to a profit of more than €500,000 a year earlier, according to accounts filed at the Companies Registration Office. No turnover figure was disclosed in the abridged accounts, though gross profits declined and administration expenses rose.

The company is owned by Emmet Daly, his father and his wife Jennifer. It has about a dozen shops, concentrated mainly in Dublin city centre, and it recently opened at Grafton Street.

According to the accounts, directors' pay rose by just over a fifth to €750,971. No dividend was paid out to its shareholders. As a result of the loss, shareholders' funds dropped to €2.57m from €3.1m.

The number of people employed by Cafe Sol fell by two to 96, though staff costs rose to €3.3m from €3m in the previous year.