How Turabo navigates the crisis

Tudor Dragomir, owner of Turabo coffee shops, has closed "everything that was loss-making, changed half the coffee shop employees, and decided to keep the boutique hotel set to be ready in October under lock until the right solution is found.

"Seven in the Real galleries and three outside Bucharest - in Cluj, Braşov, Sibiu," Tudor Dragomir Niculescu, Turabo owner, quickly lists the coffee shops he had to shut down: most of them were from among those bought three years ago from Dark Café, a coffee shop chain that had signed a contract to develop coffee shops in each Real gallery. The transaction sealed at the time, estimated to be worth 500,000 euros, enabled Niculescu to go from 15 to over 24 coffee shops, but the crisis proved this was not a profitable model in less thriving economic times. Similarly, provincial openings, which in times of economic boom turned the Turabo chain into one with national coverage, have failed to be as profitable in 2009 and 2010.

Three coffee shops in the centre of the above-mentioned cities have been closed, while airport coffee shops (in Timişoara and Sibiu) have been kept for the time being, as has been a coffee shop in Iaşi (Iulius Mall), with plans still in place for a new opening in Bucharest's old centre, and in Braşov, in another location.