But for French prosecutor Eric Maillaud, the argument 11 months before the shooting remains a valid line of inquiry. He told me: We cannot find another member of the family who would have wanted rid of Saad apart from Zaid. Zaid Al Hilli, broth...
"—Kirkus (starred) About the Author Niall Ferguson is one of the world's most renowned historians. He is the author of Paper and Iron, The House of Rothschild, The Pity of War, The Cash Nexus, Empire, Colossus, The War of the World, The Ascent of Money, High Financier, Civilization, The Great Degeneration, Kissinger, 1923-1968: The Idealist, and The Square and the Tower. He is Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and a Visiting Professor at Tsinghua University, Beijing. His many awards include the Benjamin Franklin Prize for Public Service (2010), the Hayek Prize for Lifetime Achievement (2012) and the Ludwig Erhard Prize for Economic Journalism (2013).
"Jane helped me step outside myself and look at our business from afar to see how we could grow, " Heskin says. "I remember thinking that we wouldn't survive if we didn't change our business model; we were just a café business with tapas, but there were huge restaurant places opening up in Dublin. "We went to the banks and presented a new concept, then we rebranded, increased our seating capacity, and our business changed overnight. We moved off a side street to a main street in Dun Laoghaire and Swords, where we now have private dining rooms, a full bar, and 80 seats and 100 seats, respectively. " GFP's mission is to serve a funky style of food in a fun, relaxed way. As well as healthy meals developed with nutritionists, there is bottomless prosecco and classic staples like quesadillas and huevos rancheros. The chefs tweak the menu every few months, based on new trends and feedback from customers; every Monday morning, GFP examines online reviews and immediately addresses any consistent problems.
Last year, GFP opened an outlet in Skerries and one in Salthill - its first outside Dublin. It has also operated the kitchen at House on Leeson Street since the venue first opened. In 2018, the company built a new 4, 500-sq ft catering kitchen beside its Santry restaurant and has ten delivery drivers, as well as a food truck for outdoor events. Its catering clients include Google, Salesforce, and the insurer AIG, where it operates one of its two kiosk cafes. GFP is also now the official food partner for weddings and other events at Slane Castle, and even catered for the Metallica concert there in June. Shortly after opening its first catering kitchen during the downturn, the Dublin County Board in the GAA asked GFP to supply sandwiches to their players and suggested they tender to be the sole supplier to the teams, a bid that GFP won. "When they asked us to tender, it was like saying 'you're flying to Vegas', " Heskin recalls. "Getting that business was one of the best things to have happened. "
"There was only one landlord in Dublin willing to give us a chance at the time, " says Heskin, who became GFP's managing director. "The unit was the most run-down one we saw, so we put every penny of our savings into renovating it. It was essentially a deli café that used locally sourced ingredients, which remains a strong ethos for us today. We started off doing sandwiches, desserts, wine, locally roasted coffee and home-made soup. When we opened the first day, we had a queue out the door. "Back then, there wasn't so much competition and the food business was completely different. But I was passionate about brand design, so we had our logo over the door and a little website. " Just as the two Lorraines were bedding down the Dun Laoghaire eatery, the recession and credit crunch set in. But rather than succumb to the woes of the economic environment, the duo expanded in the capital, opening an outlet on a side street in Swords in 2008, a café in Malahide in 2009, and a catering division in 2010.
"Every time we looked for a unit, we would always sit outside from 6am or 7am with a notebook and tick off the number of people who walked past at breakfast, lunch and dinnertime, " Heskin says. "In Swords, we couldn't afford units in the Pavilions Shopping Centre or Main Street. But we got the second-best thing - a unit right beside the industrial estate. So our outlet had commercial business from people working during the week and, at the weekends, residential business from people who lived locally. "We were paying bills for a 24-7 business, so we decided we may as well open for dinner as well. We brought in a tapas concept, which few people were doing at the time, and had a lad with a guitar who threw out a few Spanish tunes. We went from doing this once a month to every Friday and Saturday. People loved it. " But it wasn't enough. To ensure GFP not just survived the recession but could continue to thrive, it needed to diversify. This realisation hit home after Heskin's self-employed husband gifted her a six-month consultancy with business coach Jane Hogan in 2012.
After spending two years in the food distribution sector, Heskin clinched "one of the best jobs in the food business" - as a broker representing suppliers to the restaurant industry, flying to cities like San Francisco to entertain clients. Her boss at the brokerage became a role model who instilled in Heskin a glass-half-full approach to leadership. Heskin says: "This amazing woman bounced into work every day, and had an amazing relationship with colleagues and suppliers. She was very solid in her opinions as a businesswoman, didn't cut corners, and her reputation was really important to her. To find someone in a foreign country who completely stands for everything you stand for was incredible. " But Heskin was a "home bird" at heart, so she returned to Ireland, spending two years working as a group export sales manager at Jacobs Fruitfield in Dublin. Yet, even though she was only in her 20s, Heskin was itching to start her own food business, as was Byrne. In 2006, as the Celtic Tiger was reaching its peak, the pair took the plunge by opening a 25-seater café down a "side street off a side street" in Dublin's Dun Laoghaire, despite being rejected for a loan by every bank they approached and "not having a clue" how to run a cafe.
Now GFP is one of the largest sports catering companies in Ireland, providing post-training meals devised by sports nutritionists to all of Dublin's GAA teams. It also supplies the IRFU, the FAI, and Swim Ireland. "We diversified into this area because it's a huge area of growth, from rugby players to boxers to soccer players and gymnasts, " Heskin says. The expansion of the catering business, coupled with the two new restaurants in Galway and Skerries, helped GFP grow by a total of 400pc in 2017 and 2018. It also created some 150 jobs over the same period. Heskin expects turnover to reach €13m by the end of 2019, compared to just shy of €12m last year, and to post "good profits" this year, after investments led to GFP breaking even in 2018. However, the MD is taking a conservative approach towards expansion for 2020, when GFP plans to open just one new restaurant - again in Galway, in the fast-growing suburb of Knocknacarra. The global economy sits on the brink of recession and chaos over Brexit has exacerbated concerns about the future health of the Dublin restaurant scene.