THERE is a chance of a silver lining for the restaurant formerly known as The Fig with a restaurateur expressing interest in purchasing it.
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Even better, the Mid-North Coast offered on Friday to compensate those left out of pocket by the demise of parent company Tameeka Pty Ltd.
Gabriel Darzi is the head chef, owner and general manager of the successful The Sicilian restaurants in Taree and Forster.
On Friday he contacted Shaw Gidley Insolvency and Reconstruction, the firm responsible for the liquidation of Tameeka and its assets.
In a further twist, that day he was due to sign a contract to open a restaurant elsewhere in Port Macquarie.
"We are planning to come to town and open an Italian restaurant, and we saw this opportunity and thought it might good," Mr Darzi said.
Shaw Gidley's Scott Newton said the Italian's generous offer could work.
"He still has to buy the assets for what they're worth, but he can make token payments to creditors. That would be voluntary," the liquidator said.
"He would have to do it separately, outside of a sale. We could give him a list of creditors."
On Friday Mr Newton met with people who are owed money by Tameeka.
Surprisingly only two creditors showed up of the 52 people or businesses which are owed a total of $1.26 million by Paul Andrew Barr's former company.
One of them was a first-year apprentice chef who was owed more than $1500 in wages.
But that's nothing compared to some other staff. A letter to creditors shows one former employee is owed more than $10,000 while another is owed nearly $5000.
The total unpaid wages of nearly $39,000 doesn't compare, however, to the superannuation the former employees have accrued.
Mr Newton estimated roughly $300,000 of superannuation was owed, through Tameeka's nearly $1 million Australian Tax Office debt.
Unfortunately that amount cannot and will not ever be paid to the former staff.
One former employee said he wanted "everyone to know the truth" about Tameeka's demise.
Stock was moved from The Fig to The Pier last Sunday, the day the Town Green restaurant closed forever.
The former employee chose to speak because he was "really pissed off" when he saw the amount local businesses were owed.
The letter to creditors shows one food provider is out of pocket by more than $100,000, a butchery is listed as being owed over $3000 and another organisation is short nearly $6000.
"Being owed [any substantial amount] makes a big difference to a small company with less than five people employed," the former staffer said. "That's just crushing for them."
A "very cranky" mother of a former Tameeka employee contacted the Port News on Friday after hearing of the company's insolvency.
The woman, who did not wish to give her name, said her son been employed as an apprentice chef at the Grape and Petal last year when the restaurant was run by Tameeka.
Shortly after he started at the Clarence Street restaurant the money situation stalled.
"They just stopped paying the whole crew, so they all just walked out in June last year," the woman said. "My son was devastated. These [employees] were family men with bills to pay."
After many months of unemployment, her son secured an apprenticeship in another trade.
Mr Darzi is waiting to hear back from the liquidator, but gave an assurance there would be no problems if he were to open a restaurant at the Town Green spot.
"We do things properly, we work with Fair Work Australia and we've never had any problems with the tax office or anything like that.
"The name is The Sicilian but we don't have anything to do with the mafia," he laughed.