I’ve gone out for lunch twice during the Monday-Friday work week recently and both meals were quite telling.
One meal was at a big chain restaurant and the other was at a small, independent eatery.
Before COVID-19, the lunch crowds at both of these same Burnaby restaurants were smoking busy, but not during these visits.
The chain restaurant was pretty quiet, but still had a half-decent crowd, although nowhere near what it did before the pandemic.
The independent restaurant was empty. Like a ghost town. I was literally the only customer in the place.
COVID-19 has killed much of the lunch crowds these days. Many Burnaby restaurants I looked up for this blog have cancelled their lunch hours and don’t even open until 4 or 5 p.m.
For those that remain open, it’s not just the owners who are seeing dwindling revenue – it’s the servers too.
“Sometimes I go hours without any tips because there aren’t any customers,” said one Burnaby server at the independent restaurant. “I still get the base wage, but it’s our tips that make it possible to pay my bills.”
And some restaurant owners told me the only reason they can even have staff work some shifts for lunches is because they qualified for the federal wage subsidy.
The big chain restaurants are not empty so they are getting some traffic and some do better than others. But even their staff are struggling.
“My tips are way, way down,” said a bartender/server at one of these chain restaurants. “We keep hoping things will bounce back.”
But even the restaurant industry doesn’t think things will “bounce back” anytime soon.
On Aug. 26, the Canadian Survey on Business Conditions (CSBC), produced by Statistics Canada with support from the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, found that 31 per cent of these businesses will only able to remain operational for up to 90 days with distancing measures in effect. In other words, up to a whopping 60 per cent of the industry could fail within three months.
Report author Harrison Ruess, Public Affairs Officer for the CCC, notes that the figures are particularly concerning since, "83 per cent of businesses in the accommodation and food services industries temporarily closed and two-thirds were forced to lay off some staff due to COVID. According to Restaurants Canada, the food service industry lost 800,000 jobs."
Ruess says that the government hasn't created a recovery plan that is tailored to the needs of the hardest hit industries, such as food services. As a result, the Canadian Chamber of Commerce and 15 food service businesses, representing more than 60 brands, launched the ‘Our Restaurants’ campaign.
“We need to act now. Across Canada, our restaurants are where we meet for business or pleasure, where we got our first job and where our families spend a night out. Simply put, our restaurants are cornerstones in our communities,” said Hon. Perrin Beatty, President and CEO of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce. “The ‘Our Restaurants’ campaign underscores the urgent need for Canadians – both the public and our governments – to come together to support these businesses in their time of need.”
- with files from Elana Shepert, Vancouver Is Awesome
