A Kerry restaurant owner broke down in tears as she shared her heartbreak with RTE's Claire Byrne over the closure of the family-run business.
Joanne Riordan, owner of the Thatch Bar and Restaurant in Lisselton, revealed the reasons they are closing as she spoke to the radio host in an emotional interview on Tuesday morning.
She said that staff shortages combined with rising food costs left them with no choice but to close their doors for good at the end of May despite the upcoming tourist season.
"We're very upset to have had to announce the closure of our business and we're closing down next Tuesday, the 31st of May, at the end of the month," she said.
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"We're a small country bar and restaurant here in north Kerry, we're half way between Listowel and Ballybunion, and we have a big catchment area around us.
"So it's an awful shock for the community, for our families and for our staff."
Joanne revealed that chef staff shortages are a "massive problem" for many restaurants at the moment and they have struggled to fill their second chef position for months.
"There is such a shortage of chef's around at the moment," she said.
"We have our head chef in the kitchen and we had a second chef until the May bank holiday with him but he's in college learning his trade at the moment and he had to go out and go into his work experience.
"When we lost the second chef in the kitchen we've been struggling ever since just to keep things going.
"I've been filling in as much as I can [in the kitchen] because I've asked everyone that I know that has left the industry to see if they could come back to give us a dig out until we found someone.
"I've been looking for someone since January because I knew this was coming. I knew we'd be looking for someone.
"We need two chefs for the summer season, not just one, because we're in a busy area."
However, the difficulty of finding adequate staff was just one of the reasons they have had to close down.
Joanne said that prices from suppliers have gone up 25% and though they raised their food prices by 12.5%, it's still not enough to cover the increase and the restaurant is just absorbing costs.
She said: "To give you an example our chicken dinners were €12 or €13. [The price of] chicken has gone up 33% since February.
"We are now only charging €16 where we should maybe be charging €17.50 or €18 for a chicken dinner."
Despite looking forward to a very good summer season for business, as the Thatch Restaurant is located in between two busy tourist areas, they simply couldn't afford to keep their doors open until then.
Joanne was audibly upset in the interview and broke into tears after Claire Byrne asked her how she was coping, saying: "It's very upsetting really, very little sleep got to be honest.
"The worst part was telling our staff and telling them that we're going to be closing in two weeks' time."
