THERE ARE FEARS for the immediate future of well-known Dublin steakhouse Shanahan’s on the Green in Dublin city centre.

The restaurant, situated by Stephen’s Green and the host of Hollywood celebrities such as Mark Wahlberg over the decades, has stopped taking bookings both online and by phone.

This evening the Irish Times reported that the steakhouse is to close temporarily due to financial challenges.

The uncertainty around Shanahan’s came as businesses marched through Dublin today calling for more support from government to deal with a “tsunami” of costs or the main streets of Irish towns will be left “hollowed out”, a protest heard.

The owners of restaurants, cafes and pubs, supported by groups such as ISME and the restaurants’ and hairdressers’ associations, marched past the Department of Finance to Leinster House over the lack of support offered to small and medium-sized businesses in Budget 2025.

It heard that there had been over 700 restaurant closures in the last 13 months alone.

‘People are not whinging for the sake of whinging’

Irish chef and founder of the Ballymaloe Cookery School Darina Allen was among those who gathered outside Leinster House to highlight the high costs facing small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs).

She told the PA news agency that it’s “definitely, definitely tough”, particularly for small restaurants and cafes relying on “a couple of cents on a coffee”.

“People are not whingeing for the sake of whinging, they are not exaggerating,” she said.

Allen said that while some people may think that if they see a restaurant busy with customers, there’s a “whole tsunami of rising costs” for each business to address.

“People think they’re making a fortune,” Allen said, adding that the cost of food ingredients has “gone up by 300-400%” in recent times.

“I don’t resent that, because I know a lot of farmers are not being paid enough to cover the costs of producing good food,” she said.

Chief executive of the Restaurants Association of Ireland Adrian Cummins said he hoped that today’s protest was the start of a “groundswell movement” for SMEs.

He said that decoupling cafes and restaurants out of the 13.5% hospitality VAT rate and bringing in a separate VAT rate for them would be a “silver bullet”.

“Your high street is getting hollowed out,” he said.

With reporting by PA