If you’re clued up on who’s who in the celebrity chef game you’ll be familiar with the name Conrad Gallagher, whose reputation has taken a battering in the local press over the past few years.

We ran through an extensive list of his previous indiscretions back in March of last year (HERE), with particular focus on two disgruntled former employees who emailed us their gripes.

They aren’t alone, as Conrad has a long and storied history of business ventures gone wrong. The Independent ran a piece on him a couple years ago HERE, detailing his brushes with the law, citing fraud, amongst other misdemeanors.

Then this email came our way yesterday and once again fanned the flames:

Hi there,

I was searching for Conrad Gallagher and found your article. Are you aware that he has done it again? He closed Gallaghers Restaurant in Gardens, Cape Town, a few months ago and now has a new restaurant called Gallaghers on Stanley in Port Elizabeth!

We have a R1000 dinner voucher because they did not do the Groupon class we had paid for and I have been calling all their numbers and mailed them and now response. We went to the Gardens restaurant last night to find it was shut and spoke to a woman who said he owes many people lots of money – our R1000 does not compare to the amounts he owes others.

Now we’ve been alerted to a Facebook page, Class Action against Conrad Gallagher, and it makes for interesting reading.

Here’s the opening post, dated October 31:

And in the comments section below that post, things are certainly heating up. Some of those:

I have had a run in with this man. He managed to defraud a small finance company based on a bogus computer order that he placed with me, got the large amount of money for the order paid to himself and then he cancelled the order. 6 months later I had a call from the finance company. He had stopped paying his instalments and they were under the impression that he had the goods and they wanted to repossess. He is a very slippery bugger !

And this:

He also used to pay us for cakes by sending us a proof of payment from his Investec account. He would then cancel the payment and we had no idea until we checked our bank statement. We assumed then that a POP from a bank was proof. Investec have since changed things so that payments cannot be so easily reversed.

We’ll keep the ball rolling:

I worked at Geisha in 2008 / 2009 and he did the same thing then. How was this man even allowed to operate in this country?

He still owes us money for PR we did for him. Ironically our brief was to change his image of always being in debt…. Too shocking for words.

Unfortunately, we were unaware of Gallagher’s past. He very convincingly took dinnerware from us, promised to pay, but we have received almost nothing.

That new PE restaurant the original post makes mention of is Gallagher’s Stanley Steeet (Facebook page HERE), and there are some less than convincing reviews:

My son went to Gallaghers last night to order a take away lamb shank while we were at Fusin. They quoted him R120 but said they did not have take away containers and that he must go get one from one of the other restuarants. So he went and “borrowed” one from another restuarant and took it to Gallaghers asking them to prepare the shank to be ready in an hour. He went to collect the take away. I gave him R200. He only got R60 in return. He said they told him thats the price when he asked. The container seemed a bit light so I opened it. There the smallest lamb shank lay in a teaspoon of mash with one lonely tomato all dried out and lost in the huge take away container. My friend went to query the portion size and was told thats what we serve, thats what there is, what can you do about it? She was so shocked she just walked away. I went and bought another meal to take hime to my husband. The next time I see an empty restuarant I will know to stay away.

Another:

Terrible introductory to a new restaurant.. Not one to post a review or criticize, but the way we were treated was unacceptable. What was supposed to be a memorable night celebrating a special occasion, we arrived to our table been double booked and then left standing in the middle of the restaurant with no answers and the manageress and waiters just ignoring us and not trying to sort the problem out. Was pretty embarrassing having everyone look at us as if we were in the wrong. After 5min of being ignored we were told that they booked us under the wrong name and that someone else is still at our table. They then tried to place us at this table with a couple enjoying their evening and said we could just occupy the 2 other seats. We said we will come back in 10min and rather wait for a open table, only to come back to a table not ready and still left dirty from previous customers. I don’t know were a waiter ever pokes a finger into a customer suggesting something on the menu( more then once). After about an hour we were told that the chef is not taking anyone’s orders for 15min, so I asked if could order some artesian bread as a starter and told that the chef said no orders. Eventually we received our mains and the manageress approached us and said you’ve waited long enough for this food with a smile and no apology at all for the inconvenience earlier. The chef/owner could learn to respect his employees and speak to them and not shove his finger in the waiters chest in front of all the patrons. You guys could learn a thing or 2 from some well known restaurants in Stanley street.

It does also have a number of five star reviews, it’s only fair to mention that, but I wonder if those patrons are aware of the number of people with  alleged horror stories to tell of their dealings with Conrad.

Whether or not Gallagher’s Stanley Street turns into a success remains to be seen, but it might be of interest to some that a man with such a history has once again been allowed to operate a business on our shores, if these stories published on Facebook are true.

Do you have a story to share about your dealings with Conrad? Send them our way at editor@2oceansvibe.com, or head to that class action lawsuit Facebook page (HERE) and weigh in with your opinion.