Even by the standards of Saba on Clarendon Street, one of Dublin 2’s most popular restaurants, it was a buzzing and fun filled lunch that stretched on into the evening. Just five weeks ago the Irish female hockey team was celebrating both international women’s day and their own success. Silver medallists in the 2018 Women’s Hockey World Cup, the team was excited about its prospects in the run up to what was to be their 2020 Olympic campaign.

Saba managing director Paul Cadden watched with pride as some of the stars of the team told their stories. Saba is an official partner of the team and supplies them with post match and training meals. “They are an amazing bunch of women, really inspirational,” Cadden says.

A week later Covid-19 was in Ireland. The Olympics would quickly be cancelled for a year. For Caden and his team the hard decision was taken to close.

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For the last five weeks Saba’s six restaurants have been shuttered. Yesterday it gingerly opened its venues as takeaways in Rathmines and Baggot Street to allow food collection and / or home delivery. It hopes to open more of its restaurants in time too in a similar fashion. Like all businesses, however, it is being cautious. 

I had met Paul Cadden once before at a charity lunch a year ago, and later asked him to tell me his story. We’d both been too busy to get around to it. Now it was a different story. I was among the first to place an order for collection from the Thai and Vietnamese restaurant group, which reopened yesterday. Cadden is behind the counter when I arrive. The place is spotless. All staff are wearing gloves and masks. Cadden is his friendly self, and its good food, as I would discover when I got home, had not changed a bit.

Surviving illness, launching a business

Paul Cadden’s parents were hoteliers who owned the Asgard Bar and Restaurant in Westport, Co Mayo. His family lived for a time above the Asgard, and a love of the restaurant business was ingrained in him. “At the kitchen table it was all we discussed,” Cadden says. “If we ate in a restaurant, we were always its number one critics discussing how we would do it better or what we could learn.”

To this day, Cadden said he still bounces ideas off his parents about business. “They survived so many recessions over the years. There were no pandemics, mind you! But they came through previous down times because they stuck to their values: customer service, family orientated and taking care of the team. We have tried to carry those values through to Saba.”

Cadden was previously a partner in Diep Le Shaker, where he met Thai chef Taweesak ‘Tao’ Trakoolwattana. He was, however, struck down by Guillain-Barre syndrome, a rare disease where the body’s immune system attacks its nerves.

“I ended up paralysed from the shoulders down. But I was very lucky it didn’t go into my lungs.”

Cadden was out of action for a year, but he made a full recovery. He decided it was time to go out on his own, so he founded Saba. His brother Alan joined him as operations director for Saba To Go, its takeaway arm. (Another brother Mark, incidentally, runs Bar One in Castlebar, Co Mayo.)

Paul Cadden knew that he would need talented chefs if he wanted to create Saba. He flew to Bangkok to meet up with Trakoolwattana, who had by then left Diep to live in Thailand. “We met in the morning to see if he could source some chefs for me,” Cadden tells me. “We arranged to meet up again for dinner in an outdoor restaurant on the Chao Phraya river. He arrived with six chefs, who I used to work with. They all were willing to come back to Ireland. So that was the start of it.”

“The operation was a success and both are doing really well. Again, the team came together to support the guys in this unbelievable gesture from Saek.”

Cadden said that this close-knit spirit had stood to Saba even as it had to make hard decisions in response to Covid-19. “We have had loads of challenges in the business over the years but nothing like this. We do talk about Saba family but that is because it is true. Those guys from Thailand don’t have family here. In Ireland they are part of my family. They are so loyal and so dedicated. Even in the last few weeks everyone has really stepped up to pull together.”

A family pulling together

Saba, Cadden said, had 142 staff prior to the crisis, but it had been forced to temporarily lay off 115 people. “We are a tight core now,” Cadden said. “We are doing everything we can. But when will it all be able to open again nobody knows.”

Cadden has a team that has stood together in previous personal crises. Trakoolwattana was diagnosed with cancer in December 2018 and had one sarcoma tumour removed in April 2019 and another in November 2019. “He is doing really well and very positive. The great thing to see was how the Saba family came together to take care of him, supporting him,” Cadden said. “Eddy – Chuchat Usahakanon – has been a chef with Saba since we opened. He has had kidney failure and has been receiving dialysis for the last two years as he waited for a transplant and a match. Last year, his colleague and friend Saek Pradubwate who is head chef of Saba To Go offered his kidney and it was a match,” Cadden added.

“The operation was a success and both are doing really well. Again, the team came together to support the guys in this unbelievable gesture from Saek.”

A cautious return

Saba is being cautious in its return. In Rathmines, Dublin 6, it is starting by offering delivery through services like Deliveroo and Just Eat. It hopes to expand to drive through. Its Baggot Street venue is offering both collection and home delivery. Over time, Cadden hopes to reopen other outlets in a limited way reflecting the crisis.

“There should be zero percent Vat for the next 12 months and then scale back up slowly to 9 per cent.”

“We are in this for the long haul,” Cadden said. “We have had to pivot quickly. We have new procedures in place. Social distancing, screens, face masks, gloves, contactless. The team has to be happy they want to work.” Cadden is mobilising Saba’s database of over 17,000 people as well as its social media platforms to let people know it is trading again. It is looking at ways to deliver meals to employees in businesses now all working remotely.

Cadden says he believes the government is showing “fantastic leadership” as is Adrian Cummins of The Restaurants Association of Ireland. “Our business will need support,” he said. “There should be zero percent Vat for the next 12 months and then scale back up slowly to 9 per cent. Business rates can’t stay the same. Anything that can be done needs to be to keep businesses open and people employed.”

Paul Cadden’s wife Sarah and her family own Grays Jewellers on Johnson’s Court off Grafton Street. The business was founded 30 years ago by her parents George and Dorothy Gray. “They are also closed at the moment, but staying in touch with their customers on social media and hope to be open soon again,” Caden said.

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Saba is an established business that weathered the last financial crash. Only last January, Saba to Go, was named the best overall takeaway, as well as Thai, in Ireland at the Just Eat Awards.  Like so many other enterprises in Ireland’s restaurant game however, it was overnight decked by this crisis. A great business however is judged not by how it falls but on how it picks itself back up. Saba has begun to do so.