Independent restaurants were already facing tight margins when COVID-19 hit, and chefs and owners say it’s possible up to half of them won’t survive as past this summer.
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For a man with three closed restaurants, John Sinopoli is a busy guy. Sinopoli is one of the owners of Toronto’s Ascari Hospitality Group, which runs the popular eatery Ascari Enoteca, along with two other businesses: a bar and a catering company.
These days, he’s making meal kits, delivering boxes of high-end groceries and lobbying for an industry that he believes is coming close to losing many of its independent operators.
By early April, 10 per cent of Canada’s restaurants had closed permanently because of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the industry group Restaurants Canada.
It’s Sinopoli’s prediction that many more could follow suit — at least half of the independently-owned restaurants in the country.
His view was echoed in a voluntary survey released in late April by Restaurants Canada, where 50 per cent of independent restaurants said they’d permanently close within three months under current conditions.
Sinopoli is one of the forces behind the recently created lobby group SaveHospitality.ca. Its goal is to focus government attention on what is happening to smaller restaurants owned by families or chefs.
Job losses
The group is calling for forgivable loans that could add up to billions of dollars, at around 10 per cent of a company’s annual sales from last year.
The group is also asking for regulatory changes such as lowering taxes on alcoholic spirits purchased by retailers and requiring credit card companies to lower interest rates on accounts held by hospitality businesses.
“Why is the restaurant and hospitality industry not your number one concern considering the massive amount of job loss,” said Sinopoli.
That is also what’s on the mind of Vancouver chef Robert Belcham. Two of his restaurants and a bar are currently closed because of the pandemic. It gives Belcham a lot of time to think.
“The state of my industry is completely … broken,” said Belcham, who added that the business model for small restaurants was precarious in North America even before the coronavirus hit.
“We’ve painted ourselves into a corner of pushing toward the bottom.”
Belcham said independent restaurateurs l