Richard Corrigan’s restaurant: ‘I would never work under those conditions ever, ever again,’ says ex-Park Cafe employee

Elsa's experience working at The Park Cafe quickly turned sour

Listen | 23:29

“Elsa” had decades of experience waiting in restaurants before being hired at celebrity chef Richard Corrigan’s new Dublin restaurant The Park Cafe last year.

Within a few weeks she was one of over a dozen staff to leave.

Fourteen of them spoke to The Irish Times’s restaurant critic Corinna Hardgrave about why they did so: Harsh language, a bad atmosphere and rates of pay that were not what was promised.

On today’s In the News podcast we hear from Elsa about her experience.

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Staff at The Park Cafe were also critical of the restaurant’s system for distributing tips and the “discretionary service charge”.

The tip distribution policy in The Park Cafe is publicly available, as required by law.

But could it be that diners have lost track of how restaurants now share tips among staff – including senior managers?

Elsa and Corinna Hardgrave talk to Bernice Harrison.