An­drea Perez-Sobers
and Pe­ter Christo­pher

Häa­gen-Dazs’ out­let at Eller­slie Plaza of­fi­cial­ly closed busi­ness per­ma­nent­ly at the start of this week.

Sig­nage from the branch was tak­en down by Mon­day, fol­lowed by a so­cial me­dia post from the com­pa­ny con­firm­ing the clo­sure.

The post said, “Dear val­ued cus­tomers, our Eller­slie Plaza shop has of­fi­cial­ly closed its doors. As we say good­bye to our Eller­slie Plaza lo­ca­tion, we want to thank every­one who shared sweet mo­ments with us there.”

The lo­ca­tion was the first branch opened in T&T in 2003.

The post, how­ev­er, en­cour­aged cus­tomers to con­tin­ue vis­it­ing the brand’s oth­er lo­ca­tions.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Had­co Group co-CEO John Hadad said the Eller­slie out­let was the first Häa­gen-Dazs café opened by the group and had be­come the old­est in the port­fo­lio. Hadad ex­plained that while the brand once op­er­at­ed ten cafés, the net­work was re­duced to nine sev­er­al years ago fol­low­ing the clo­sure of the To­ba­go lo­ca­tion, which failed to achieve ac­cept­able sales and prof­itabil­i­ty lev­els.

“At the end of the day, what you are look­ing at with those cafés is per­for­mance and prof­itabil­i­ty,” Hadad said. “We mea­sure the prof­itabil­i­ty of each store as it goes along. To­ba­go was not per­form­ing very well. The sales were not good, and it was not a prof­itable store.”

With To­ba­go closed, the com­pa­ny con­tin­ued to op­er­ate nine lo­ca­tions for sev­er­al years. More re­cent­ly, Had­co con­duct­ed a de­tailed as­sess­ment of the re­main­ing stores. Eller­slie Plaza emerged as an­oth­er un­der­per­form­ing unit, par­tic­u­lar­ly when its ex­pens­es were weighed against its rev­enue.

The group cur­rent­ly op­er­ates three Häa­gen-Dazs cafés in the north­ern cor­ri­dor at Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah, The Falls at West­mall and Movi­eTowne, cre­at­ing over­lap in catch­ment ar­eas. Hadad said Eller­slie’s cost struc­ture made it less com­pet­i­tive than near­by lo­ca­tions.

The de­ci­sion to close was ac­cel­er­at­ed by the need for cap­i­tal ex­pen­di­ture. As the first and old­est store, Eller­slie re­quired ren­o­va­tion to meet up­dat­ed brand stan­dards. Hadad not­ed that brand own­er Gen­er­al Mills had in­di­cat­ed that in­vest­ment would be re­quired to up­lift the lo­ca­tion.

Fol­low­ing the clo­sure, Häa­gen-Dazs now op­er­ates eight cafés lo­cal­ly. Hadad de­scribed the move as part of the nor­mal evo­lu­tion of a di­ver­si­fied busi­ness group ad­just­ing to chang­ing mar­ket con­di­tions.

“Over the last few years, we’ve had one or two busi­ness­es that we’ve had to close and re­shape be­cause the mar­ket changes,” he said. “What was im­por­tant yes­ter­day doesn’t mean it’s im­por­tant to­day.”

He stressed that the Eller­slie clo­sure was not dri­ven by re­cent cost in­creas­es in in­puts such as ice cream, but by longer-term struc­tur­al is­sues. Key over­heads, such as main­te­nance, salaries, and rent had been el­e­vat­ed for some time, while sales at mar­gin­al stores failed to im­prove.

“We’ve been look­ing at some­thing that has been the same thing for the last two or three years,” Hadad said. “The ques­tion was whether it was go­ing to get any bet­ter. At the point where cap­i­tal ex­pen­di­ture be­came nec­es­sary, the an­swer was no.”

Hadad con­firmed that af­fect­ed em­ploy­ees will not be dis­placed. Work­ers from the Eller­slie café are be­ing ab­sorbed in­to oth­er Häa­gen-Dazs lo­ca­tions and Pep­per­corns out­lets with­in the Had­co Group.

He added that the com­pa­ny con­tin­ues to as­sess its broad­er food port­fo­lio, in­clud­ing po­ten­tial in­vest­ment in its lo­cal­ly owned Cream­ery brand, while close­ly mon­i­tor­ing the per­for­mance of all re­main­ing stores.