THE owners of Jack 'O' Bryan's said plans to open another restaurant in Dunfermline had to be put on the back burner due to staff shortages.

Bryan Coghill, who runs the popular eaterie in Chalmers Street with his family, said the "recruitment crisis" in the hospitality industry meant they couldn't get enough skilled workers for their planned takeover of the former Grill 48 building on East Port.

He told the Press: "We were going to open another restaurant in Dunfermline but we've had to put it on hold simply because of a shortage of staff.

"We couldn't get the 35 people we would have needed because of the situation in the hospitality industry just now.

"It was going to be a different concept but we can't go ahead until this situation is rectified, and I don't know when that will be."

A fine-dining restaurant, Jack 'O' Bryan's has been a welcome addition to Dunfermline since it opened almost three years ago.

And despite being hit by incidents of vandalism, storm damage last August that left them with no roof and a £25,000 repair bill and the devastating impact of the pandemic on the hospitality trade, it's still busy, popular and the owners are willing to expand.

Grill 48 closed in September 2019 and has been empty ever since.

Bryan continued: "We had the building warrant for the alterations and everything but then thought if we do all this work and then can't open because we don't have any staff ...

"That's the reality of it and that's how bad the situation with staffing is in the industry.

"Expanding the business is something we've always wanted to do, and we're still going to do it but it'll have to wait until the situation with staffing gets better."

Back in September, Stephen Montgomery, the chairman of the Scottish Hospitality Group, warned: “The recruitment crisis in the hospitality sector has now reached breaking point for countless pubs, clubs and restaurants across the country. 

“The number of unfilled vacancies in the hospitality sector in Scotland is at its highest since records began.

“There is a real risk that these businesses – having worked so hard to survive 18 months of lockdowns and restrictions – will now fail because of the difficulty in recruiting staff.”

Bryan acknowledged: "It's a national problem. We're down to five days just now, we're shut Mondays and Tuesdays, due to the staffing issue.

"We had seven chefs and one went back to France so that left us short.

"To do what we do with handmade fresh food, everything done properly and from scratch, something had to give."

He continued: "We furloughed all our staff and managed almost all of them but I know of other places where the staff on furlough, who were from abroad, couldn't afford to stay and went back home.

"Other people got other jobs and now don't want to go back to working on Friday nights and Saturday nights, when everyone else is out enjoying themselves.

"Also during lockdown, people spent more time with their families and maybe realised how important that was.

"So if you can get paid for a 9-5 job and spend more time with your family, I certainly don't blame them for wanting to do that."

Bryan revealed a recent report said the pool of people working in the hospitality industry had shrunk by around 30 per cent.

He said: "That's a lot of people.

"I've heard all of Tom Kitchin's places are down to four days a week as that's the only way they can operate.

"Brexit gets blamed for a lot, and it certainly is a factor, but there are other issues too.

"There needs to be more of a focus on finding people that want to do this as a career and not just a job.

"I've been doing it 36 years and I love it.

"It's a great job but it's a hard job with a lot of long hours and you want to have a family life as well.

"It's tough to balance all of that."