Toronto Star- Canadian restaurants struggle to survive as survey finds diners turning away from skyrocketing menu prices
A staggering 51 per cent of restaurants in Canada are operating at a loss, compared to only 12 per cent before the pandemic, according to Restaurants Canada. And one of the main reasons may be found in a new report released Tuesday by Dalhousie University showing Canadians tightening their belts and not dining out altogether due to shrinking portions and ballooning menu prices.
And more than 68 per cent of Canadians noted a reduction in portion sizes at restaurants, a phenomenon known as “shrinkflation,” with 77 per cent now opting for more affordable dining establishments due to price hikes.
Yup. That darned old pandemic. That’s the culprit. It attacked our politicians’ brains, balls, and backbones.
Jimmy McMaster
When did politicians have such items, they have always been crooks and stupid crooks at that.
We can thank our less than useful governments for the current state of the economy.
Not sure where they’re talking about but the restaurants here in Ontari-owe are always full. Maybe it’s a Dalhousie/Halifax problem ? Well, their Libtard masters just gave them the Carbonaceous Tax back so that should solve that.. ain’t that right welfare monkeys ??
But yes, prices have skyrocketed. That’s Justinflation for you.
Perhaps those restaurants are serving people coffee and not much else. We can still go out to a eatery for the social aspects of it, but we do not need to eat there.
I always eat nutritious food that I prepare … myself … at home …
I like to cook. Most do not.
I only eat out on special occasions.
I don’t like to waste money.
We don’t eat out enough to tell whether restaurants are struggling or not, but our primary reason is the high cost of the meals. It didn’t take long for us to learn to avoid them.
Another reason for ballooning prices are minimum wages in the $15 per hour range. The marginal consumer can’t afford that. The economic illiterates running the country cannot fathom that it’s not businesses that pay their workers; consumers do that and more of them are choosing not to pay.
If you like to have a drink or two with your meal, the auto increase in fed taxes on booze is hurting too
A bottle of reasonably drinkable Cab/Merlot at my Metro just went from $13.95 TO $14.95.
A 1.0 L box of Vinho Blanco at the Continente in Lisbon is €0.85. Vinho Tinto same.
Arroz du Pato and mixed greens makes a great takeaway dinner.
Two can dine for €5.
i still use a 2 euro limit on all wine purchases in Europe. Upped it from 1 euro about 2 years ago. I was in france ,germany , austria and czech republic just a month back. BTW , the only one with a homeless problem appeared to be France .
A 9oz glass of wine is routinely $19 before tax at local restaurants. Cheaper to do takeout or just cook at home.
My local is usually fairly busy, certainly back to pre-WuFlu days, based on the sporting event of course.
I’m sure the “greedy corporations are creating inflation” mob wouldn’t understand how hard it is for the family of four to open it at 3PM, and close it after 2AM.
That’s four people, two of them retired, to do all the cooking, cleaning, serving, etc., on top of that, running the business end with its usual bureaucratic crap. (One time they got dinged for a “health safety” issue…turns out their box of test strips (which came in a box of one hundred…they used one a month) was expired. I mean, do the math…
I was in Toronto last week, right downtown. The city has changed. Gone are the fabulous people. What’s left over is dumpy and wears sweat pants and they’re not the homeless. We went for a business dinner. The quality of the food was very high, the service excellent. The staff all immigrant looking and sounding. The bill! Holy crap. I thought it might be a down payment for the restaurant. We left just after 10:00 pm. The streets were deserted.
Wait, Toronto has – or had – “fabulous” people??? Really???
It did when I lived there. Harrumph.
THIS IS EXACTLY WHY WE NEED A $20/HR MINIMUM WAGE!!! None of the restaurant workers can afford to eat out!
/S
California bedpan changers can afford to eat out now! Anyone who changes sheets … deserves a living wage … Right? /s
https://calmatters.org/health/2023/10/california-minimum-wage-health-care-law/
I wonder how much longer In & Out will stay in CA?
Brandon, I do believe that is exactly the way our socialist governments think.
A tale of two Cities.
My wife and a friend stopped at a Chinese restaurant in Ottawa for dinner about two weeks ago. $39.99 pp for the buffet; excluding drinks. So they turned around and walked out. She said the place was packed.
Contrast that with Jack Lee’s in mill-town Cornwall. $11.99 for the buffet. And not very busy.
That’s what I’ve noticed too. The urban/suburban are doing ok. Smaller centres and rural not.
The stratification of society continues.
It’s only “fair” though. If those silly “unacceptables” would just elect more Libtard Cabinet Ministers maybe their restaurants would do better…
Libtards and their supporters. They always make sure they get theirs first.
A healthy swath of Ottawa residents can continue to eat out as they are government employees and sucking off the taxpayer. Excellent pay, regular wage increases and benefits that the average Canadian would love to have but can’t afford.
And our “working for the people” MPs ensure that their pay is generously increased every year. This way they
don’t have to feel the effects of a poor economy like the rest of us poor tax slaves. Nice racket.
We’re always told minorities eat fast food and are obese because it’s less expensive to eat fast food. Anyone who knows how to cook, or has a brain, knows that is not true.
Me and the wife used to eat dinner out once or twice a month, and lunch maybe eight or ten times a month.
Since the plandemic, we’ve slowed down our out habits, and mostly eat at home nowadays. I last dined dinner out in early September, and have no plans to go out to eat anytime soon. For us, the cost of eating out has risen dramatically and obviously. As the cost of food and groceries rises less and less will eat out, and eating at home ain’t cheap anymore either, but at least we are still able to eat……for now!
What galls me is that this has been done to us deliberately to soften us up for the WEF takeover plans!
I’ve noticed two new “trends” at restaurants post pandemic. One I believe to be a direct result. However, the other is just a reflection of today’s younger generation:
1. In above average and fine dining restaurants, they are automatically attaching a 20% tip to the bill. And, if you’re not paying attention, you end up paying a tip and then leaving another tip (if desired).
2. This one relates to Generation Z. Count your change at fast food places. I’ve caught the cashier short changing me at least 10 times (in 10 different locations) in the last 3 months or so. What they do is give you change less a $1 so it isn’t automatically obvious unless you work out the amount in your head. It’s easy to overlook. The same thing occurred in some convenience stores, but not as often.
I will eat at home and I will be happy, thanks. ;-)
I like to cook and I can set a pretty fair (fare) table (if you like moose ha). I go out once or twice a year to a restaurant. I just don’t feel I’m getting value for money and I object to the obligatory tip. I’m prepared to tip for good service/food but I decide what that tip is going to be.
So, are these the same eateries where a mask Nazi, guarded the door and rudely shooed away anyone that did not have the govt. approved jab papers? All for the greater good, of course. If my money wasn’t good enough then…………
Exactly. Not a peep out of them or the restaurant association. They can gfo.
What’s a restaurant? Is that where rich people go to eat, and who don’t want to have to hire fulltime domestic servants?
Get into hunting. Cooking a meal where you stalked and bagged the meat, while your wife harvested the fresh veggies from the family garden? Priceless.
Oh and “take your boy(s) hunting with you, and you won’t have to go hunting for your boy(s)” are seriously wise words.
Sex pervert (aka bdsm)
What’s a WIFE????
WTF? Are you high?
Bdsm: He’s just being his usual mouthy self. Ignore him as the rest of us do.
Sex pervert
BDSM is perverted sex acts, so why do you use that handle?
As to john pig below FO
666 trigger the bible pounders, butt yer perverted title gets a pass!!
For me, that’s a bigger reason. $9 for a bottle of Miller High Life isn’t helping either.
Last time my sisters and I went out together I ordered a small sweet potato fries-they cost 9 dollars. My sisters ordered eggs bennie something or other and each meal was 39 dollars for two eggs, a couple muffins and a wee slice of ham. I’m not big on restaurant food, most of the time it tastes like it came out of a box from Cosco.
Eggs benny and an OJ in belovedly affordable Cornwall was $34.00.
My friend celebrated his b-day at Toque in Montreal, bill came in at a cool $2000 with tax and tip.
Yes, two thousand dollars for a meal for two.
https://www.restaurant-toque.com/en
“Every single aspect of operating a restaurant has become much more expensive,” she said. “It’s everything including higher food costs, higher utility, higher rent, higher labour costs.”
And why is that Ms.Higginson? C’mon…say those words honey. You can do it. I looked at your website – applauding the feds for lowering credit card fees isn’t going to be enough for restaurants make their nut. Stupid shit.
But hey, you do you. Not exactly a Profiles in Courage moment.
4 at buffet , Chinese, last nite. Went on monday because it would be quiet . 2 senior discounts (and I wasn’t asked for proof this time) $180, tip included . Not bad at all.
Persoal bitch: Euopeans will not give you a glass of water with your meal. If you ask for water, you will be asked, “Will that be ‘sparkling’, or ‘spring? Then they will bring you a bottle of water and charge you for it. You are expected to want booze of some sort. Uncivilizes pricks.
Not true.
$3.40 for a single cup of coffee at the Denny’s in my town in central BC. Poor coffee at that.
Eat out less often than before, for a few reasons.
First, I don’t like restaurants anymore. After the vax pass I see them as agents of oppression. Not a place I like to be.
Second, on a related note, it is not a social contact that I want. I live in a COVIDian area that was very keen to wear a mask, socialist distance, vax and persecuting people who question the narrative. These people are not people I trust or respect. I don’t like to be around them.
Third, they are really expensive and typically provide food inferior to what I can make myself.
100%.
Since turning to eating carnivore 95% of the time, restaurants are basically off the list.
Good.
No more seed oils, no more sugar, bread or rice.
No more overpriced pre-fab food.
No more junk food.
No more tipping.
Food at home is better. I get what I want.
Steak, steak, bacon and steak, with chicken and prawns.
Never ate better and down 20 pounds.
Restaurants and their overpaid staff can kiss my healthy, firm, unquackcinated ass.
O-brother… Where is Colon.
Zelensky says it’s ‘not the right time for elections’ in Ukraine
Expected from a gay comedian loosing a war and his griff$ cut out. He might get replaced 🙂
bverwey
If you find a decent locally owned restaurant, support it and skip the fast food restaurant with their lovely dose of toxic heavy metals:
https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/fast-food-heavy-metals/
obviously not catering to our newfound taste for insects.. or drinkyboxthingys
Anyone why orders an alcoholic drink with a restaurant meal (or a professional sports event / concert) has either plenty of screw you cash, or, they’re screwed in the head.
The crappy food or service would not have anything to do with it. Go to a rib place, the coleslaw is rancid. I complain (politely) and I get another bowl of coleslaw. Out of the same tub of rancid coleslaw, probably made off-site in Bangalore and shipped frozen to Canada. Another place I order dry ribs for appetizer. It’s all bones and sinew, no meat. I complain. I get chicken wing instead, just skin and fat, no meat. The manager is pleasant, but doesn’t understand the food sucks. Go to an old diner, recently bought by immigrants, order steak and eggs. I have to explain to the waitress how to wait. Yes, bring coffee first. Steak needs a steak knife. Too cooked. Ask me what potatoes I want. Am I supposed to guess or you got a list? Finally, in a tavern, I have one beer, get charged for 2. The waitress brings the machine to pay, already pre set-up on 40% tip. Screw that noise, few restaurants have their shit together.
Soon restaurants, like automobiles, will only be for the upper classes or rich.
That’s the plan.
Actually, it’s also and especially the entitled expectation of 25% tipping that has made me reluctant to go to restaurants in the past year or two. I’d rather order for pickup, save $50 or more, and eat the same tasty food in the comfort of my own home, without the noise and other hassles of a restaurant.
I’ve eaten a restaurant meal twice since 2018. Both were under enjoyed and over priced. However in the area I live there are over a dozen restaurants and bars. They are packed Thursday Friday Saturday at least.
Restaurants – Serves them right, they banished the unvaxxinated and took the blood money.
The price of a meal at a decent restaurant around here has jumped between 60 and 80% (and a few have doubled). Most folks incomes haven’t increased anything like that, so their choices are to find less expensive restaurants, choose less expensive meals, or to eat out less. None of these options will help the restaurants to thrive.
Took my mother-in-law out for dinner along with my wife tonight. It was my “mom’s” 92nd birthday.
One of Collingwood’s larger restaurants, “Kelseys”, that I hadn’t been to in quite some time. Was never “cheap$” but definitely cost a lot more than the last time I was there for a similar meal. Food great, beer expensive (Stella) service excellent and each one of us took home a “snack pack” of left overs.
Mom was agitated with the “loud” music and I asked the waitress if she could tone it down a notch or two and she did, asking the manager first, to my surprise. I paid extra in the tip for her, regardless for the “auto” tip, for that but don’t care because it was done and “mom” was happy.
bverwey
When I go out to eat, the restaurants are always full, even for lunch. I can’t blame them for charging high prices, the prices of the ingredients they cook with have also gone up considerably. Does not seem to stop people eating out (Edmonton) – any time I go, they are always very well occupied.
Hope they all go under those Vax Nazi’s.