Keeping your business afloat during a global pandemic is no easy task. Over the last couple of months, Toronto has witnessed tons of businesses — local and international food chains alike — waving goodbye to their locations or even filing for bankruptcy.
According to a recent survey conducted by Restaurants Canada (a non-profit entity representing the nation’s food industry), it could take up to 18 months for some businesses to return to profitability.
Going by the polls, almost half of the eateries — despite being able to offer take-out or extend limited dining options — are running at a loss. If things continue at this pace, only 13 per cent of the foodservice businesses are expected to be profitable again within six months. About one-third will need a year to bounce back, and 36 per cent are looking at nearly 18 months. Not surprisingly, almost everyone — 90 per cent — continue to record lower sales when equated to this time last year.
However, now that the city is in its phase two of reopening, restaurants have opened for dining in outdoor areas like patios, curbside, parking lots and adjacent premises. And not all is gloom and doom. Business has started picking up, albeit slowly.
“Our 120-capacity Yorkville location can now only offer seating for 10. We are hardly making six to eight per cent of what we were making last year, and takeout doesn’t actually help business. It’s not the same as a dine-in experience,” says Nicki Laborie, founder and owner of Bar Reyna.
She adds, “After the City of Toronto authorized for a 22-seating extended patio for our second location, Reyna on King, we are making close to 50 per cent sales but business on the whole is suffering. We don’t when we will be able to recover from this crisis.”
That said, it might take a while for international players to be back in the game, since not all of them can offer outdoor services. David Chang’s popular noodle bar, for instance, is just offering takeout and delivery from 3pm to 8pm daily, except on Mondays. If, and when things are closer to normal, Momofuku, plans to go a step ahead from just giving out single-use menus and making them available digitally instead, with a URL or QR code.
Eataly, on the other hand, has tweaked hours to cater to customers on their freshly customized patio. While take out and delivery services are open daily from 12pm to 9pm, outdoor dining facilities are weather dependent. Business is not the same, but on weekends it tends to pick up.
Speaking to Raffaele Piarulli, Executive VP of Eataly North America, we learn that they have also implemented a series of home delivery services, such as Instacart, which have proven to be a successful tool during the pandemic.
“Not just Eataly fans, but also a completely new customer base, have been able to enjoy our retail products without leaving the safety of their homes,” Piarulli says.
“On the restaurant side, it’s no secret that the industry is experiencing unprecedented difficulties as a result of the COVID-19 crisis,” he explains.
“We’ve certainly had to adapt in the past few months to be of most service to as many as possible. The pandemic has had a significant impact on the industry, with restaurants forced to reinvent the way they operate in this new normal. It’s nearly impossible to predict how COVID-19 may impact dining in the future, but certainly an increased focus on safety and sanitation is to be expected.
“We may also see that some of the ‘new’ habits, such as the takeout culture, will be solidified, and we are fully committed to make sure a great, dynamic and high quality delivery continues to be our focus on a day-to-day basis. Lastly, we think dining out will become more of a treat, and less of a ‘taken for granted’ habit. And that, will inevitably raise the bar of hospitality overall, which, in the long run, can be the silver lining,” Piarulli adds.
However, patrons of Café Boulud have been waiting to satiate their fine French-dining experience. As Liza McWilliams of Four Seasons Toronto explains, “The health and safety of guests and employees is our top priority. In light of requirements by Toronto Public Health officials, we temporarily ceased operations of Café Boulud.” They are now open, after many months of uncertainty.
As an industry that usually requires close contact in enclosed spaces, the foodservice industry has been hard-hit by the coronavirus and is proving to be among the trickiest to reopen safely.