All fired up?

Although Marque Central in Edinburgh is Caterer‘s Adopted Business, owners Lara Kearney, Glyn Stevens and John Rutter still have the first restaurant they opened in the city - the Marque.

In fact, the two businesses are conjoined, so when Kearney received a panic call from Stevens to say there had been a kitchen fire in the Marque, there were more than just fire alarm bells ringing.

Kearney explains: "Glyn rang ever so calmly and said there had been a kitchen fire, but it had been sorted. It's the sort of phone call you don't think you're ever going to get. It stunned me."

Stevens had dropped a two-litre bottle of olive oil on to the solid-top stove during lunch service and it went up in a fireball. "I ran for the fire blanket and flung it on the stove," Stevens says. "It killed the fire stone dead. I didn't think these blankets were any good, just something you had to have. We scraped a few bits of the blanket off the range, then went on with service. We only lost five minutes and none of the customers noticed."

Kearney does not want to think about what the knock-on effect to Marque Central would have been if the fire in the other restaurant had been serious. Not that there is any spare time for Kearney and the third partner in the business, Rutter, to think of anything other than Marque Central. Business is ahead of forecast, with turnover of £160,000 to date. The graveyard months of January and February turned out to be good and, with Easter just round the corner, Marque Central has had a successful birth.

The fact that the restaurant is linked to the Lyceum Theatre, with a door into the foyer as well as a door on to the street outside, was always thought to be an asset for the restaurant, but the truth is that in the lean past two months it has been the lifeblood.

"Pre-theatre dinner business is fantastic," Kearney says. "We're averaging 40 a night and they're all gone by 7.40pm." Rutter has worked out a tightly costed menu that offers two courses for £10, three for £12.50, and is available only between 5.45pm and 7pm.

Starters include mushroom soup with Gruyère and shiitake tempura or goats' cheese strudel with piperade and a balsamic-dressed salad. Main courses include roast pigeon, mushroom pasta, baby spinach, nutmeg butter and crispy pancetta. Another favourite is baked cod with aïoli crumble, balsamic potatoes and an artichoke salad. Desserts are kept light, with a poached pear with shortcake and berry sauce or a white chocolate crème brûlée with macadamia nut cookies.

Average spend per head on this early-bird menu is £18, not high by city-centre restaurant standards. But as Kearney points out, it is all extra revenue before the main dinner business after 8pm. "The theatre starts at 7.45pm, so we aim to have everyone out by 7.40pm. That was one of the problems with the last owners - they couldn't get the timing right and the theatre was having to delay the start of the show on some nights because people hadn't finished in the restaurant. They couldn't start and then get 20 people walking in."

It also means a huge cleaning operation between 7.45pm and 8pm, when the first of the main dinner customers arrive. Kearney has to do a complete table-change and clear-up, but they have enough tableware for a double sitting and Rutter has all his kitchen preparation done.

Another unexpected revenue stream has been private parties. The upstairs part of the restaurant lends itself to this and they have just had a private party for 52 for which the bill was just over £2,000. The trouble was, the party didn't arrive until 10pm and didn't leave until the early morning and everyone had to be on duty for lunch the next day.

With business so good, Rutter and Kearney have allowed themselves to spend money on new equipment. Rutter has got a new hotplate and has said he wants a new solid-top cooker as soon as funds allow. Kearney has spent £800 on a glass-fronted bottle fridge, but she got an unbelievable deal. The fridge was supplied by the soft drinks and beer supplier, who threw in enough cases of designer lager to generate £900 through the till.

But there is no such dream deal for Kearney's next purchase. If Rutter is to get his solid-top stove, she wants new tables. The existing ones are all different sizes and when she butts them together for functions, the line is zigzag. Rather than buy off the peg, she intends to have them specially made to accommodate the large service plates Rutter uses.

Both Kearney and Rutter are resigned to waiting until early summer before there is enough money left over to buy more equipment. That is unless, as they suspect, business goes ballistic in a few weeks' time when the theatre stages the musical Guys and Dolls with matinee as well as evening performances.

Next visit to Marque Central: 3 May