One of the first hospitality interviews I ever did was with a couple who ran a popular east Belfast restaurant.

I was still fairly new to the job at the time and assumed “popular” meant comfortable, that packed tables and booked-out weekends translated into breathing space behind the scenes.

Instead, they told me they were washing their own tablecloths at home to cut costs. They were taking their own food photographs and running their own social media because paying someone else was not an option. Every outgoing was heavily scrutinised.

That, I’ve since learned, is far more typical than most of us realise.

‘Belfast’s bars and restaurants look busy - but short-sighted decisions ignore the quiet reality’

Over the past few years I’ve interviewed restaurateurs marking 20 years in business, pizza pop-ups graduating to bricks and mortar and café owners reopening after setbacks that would have broken lesser spirits. The common thread has never been........

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