The jump to 15% minimum suggested tips is probably playing a role, but even without that the restaurant industry is struggling with the pandemic hangover and a marginal consumer who cannot afford to eat out.
Three in four Canadians are eating out less, often because of the high cost of living, a Restaurants Canada report published Monday found. That share is even higher among those aged 18 to 34 at 81 per cent.
Restaurants Canada chief executive Kelly Higginson said it’s an “alarming” trend for the foodservice industry.
We’re definitely eating out a lot less as compared to before the “pandemic”. It’s far too expensive and the cost of everything else including groceries is so high. Eating out is an unnecessary luxury.
they wanted it the voted for it they got it.
Easy solution for our brain dead so called economic leadership in Canada – at all levels of government: REDUCE EFFIN TAXES. It is not rocket science here. More money in our pockets the more we are willing to spend. The more we spend, the more revenue the government collects – at all levels.
My blood pressure goes up on those rare occasions when we go to restaurants. The quality of the fare coupled with the prices just about always leave me feeling ripped off. For chrissakes, they cant even make decent french-fries anymore.
So I tell my wife, “Honey, when they can match your venison backstrap steak au jus, maybe I’ll consider it. But I really dont want to go out for supper”
So we stay home …. and I happily do the dishes. 🙂
Jamie,
I hear that loud and clear.
Me and me wife indulge rarely at a couple of nostalgic places, and the fries always suck.
We both know how to cook, and lately we are trying to make nice meals with local products in the Okanagan, which has a lot of nice stuff.
We trade off on cooking vs dishes, and it works out well.
Heck, we don’t even have a dishwasher and don’t want one.
Today we were recalling our moms making porkchops on wednesday, complete with instant mashed potatoes and creamy corn, and being thankful about how far we’ve come, culinarily speaking. We even don’t have TV tables, because we don’t have TV.
Tonight we are making breaded chicken with brussel sprouts and roasted potatoes and gravy from scratch.
Life is good. But whose turn for the dang dishes?!
Brussels sprouts, eh. That’s why they invented salt, pepper, and butter. 😉
If farts were visible, they’d look like Brussel sprouts.
Took the fam out for birthday lunch on the weekend.
Bill was $168. Gave a tip of $20, less than 15%, but those servers are getting almost $20/hr. We worked restaurants for $5/hr……
They brought me the wrong pasta too, but, no matter the shape, it’s the same thing.
Yes, restaurants are ridiculously priced, but it was still busy.
Average $25 a plate for average food. SMH.
This was a seldom occasion. We just don’t eat at these places. For that price, I can buy a slab of strip loin and eat many meals!
Restaurants Canada chief executive Kelly Higginson said it’s an “alarming” trend for the foodservice industry.
3 out of 4 Canadians also say it’s an alarming trend, and we don’t use ‘scare’ quotes.
The better question is all of the words that surrounded the word “alarming” that they pulled out and replaced with their preferred version in writing the article.
“and $1,135 at quick-service restaurants” = 20 bucks a week for fast food slop.
And when a beach shitter is putting condiments on your burger – no fckn thanks.
Not to worry … just do what San Francisco does with all their vacated restaurants and retail businesses … open “Pop Up” Stores and Restaurants! You see, this is capitalism done right, as none of these businesses need to be profitable as their demise is pre-programmed… they pop up … then they collapse down … by design. Brilliant!
AOC famously chased an Amazon warehouse OUT of Queens … because Amazon, or something. Because too profitable a business or something. I’m sure that enhanced all the small businesses in Queens … not to mention employment
“Three in four Canadians are eating out less, often because of the high cost of living…”
Yeah. It’s A) too expensive by a wide margin and B) the food is terrible. Honestly, does anyone -want- to eat at Wendy’s, or McDonalds, or Subway, or Quiznos, or whatever? Are you looking forward to that meal?
No way. You’re putting up with it because you’re hungry and you’re not at home. It’s eat the fast food or starve for an hour or two while you drive home through traffic.
For a meal that isn’t terrible? Like a steak, or some fish, on a plate? $50 plus tip, minimum, if you can even find a place.
Would you like more MSG with that?
I have no desire to eat out. Food I cook myself from ingredients that my grandmother would recognize is better and far healthier.
Definitely eating out less. The prices have gone up, but that’s not my main issue. There are fewer and fewer restaurants where the food is worth it. Forget the lower end fast food Jeet-serviced meals. Garbage served by cheap labour, profits for offshore corporations draping themselves in the Canadian flag that employ no Canadians. Looking at you Tim’s.
“Looking at you Tim’s.”
Exactly.
“Tim’s” was bought by a Brazilian corporation nearly 25 years ago.
I’m with many commenters in saying that Canadian restaurateurs do a poor job.The food is 2nd or 3rd rate,the environment likewise, the decor too, the service amateurish (though often energetic and well meaning) et cetera.
Just like the spell checker here which thinks “et cetera” is an error. We live in a degraded age.
We try to go out for fine dining and dancing at places which claim they provide that. They do not. The food is average, the service is a good effort but unsuccessful by under-trained young people. Not their fault – the owners are incompetent fools. The “Dance Music” is neither danceable nor music, being brutish, high volume thumpings of antiquated rock by one of the local headbanger boomer bands. I’m a boomer and I hate boomer bands, may they rot in hell. I’ve heard the same fucking boomer tunes 2000 times and hope never to hear them again.
Canadian restaurateurs deserve bankruptcy.
I’ve noticed appetizer portions getting a lot smaller. Fine! I just won’t order one then!
25 bucks for a burger now in many places. I’d prefer to buy a couple of strip loins and BBQ at home. I’m surrounded by neighbors who indulge in the food deliveries, one in particular I noticed 3 deliveries in one day! I live in a small city with many industrial plants, so lots of high paying jobs keeping deliveries very busy here.
I have no interest in patronizing any establishment that went along with the government’s abusive and wrongheaded vaccine mandates, and that is not going to change anytime soon. I’ll barely tolerate it if friends are going, because…friends. But that’s IT.
Also I’ve been upping my cooking game, especially throughout the last 5 years, and I really don’t know any places that can put a dish in front of me that I can’t do better at home for a fraction of the cost.