How many restaurants do we really need in Canada?

Article By Sylvian Charlebois Published September 29, 2021
Article Source: How many restaurants do we really need in Canada? - Troy Media

The pandemic may have presented a golden opportunity for the industry to reflect on its future

Did we have too many restaurants before the COVID-19 pandemic?

Did the pandemic only wipe out ‘extra’ restaurants in Canada? With the labour shortage, the cost of food ingredients exploding, and the list of regulations growing almost every year, making a restaurant profitable has become difficult.

Certainly, the pandemic has presented a golden opportunity for the industry to reflect on its future.

Before the pandemic, restaurants were in their glory years. Compared to 20 or 30 years ago, going out to eat was routine for many of us. Canadians spent an average of about 35 per cent of their food budget on restaurants, and the sector was on the verge of exceeding $100 billion in sales per year.

But in March 2020, everything changed. According to Statistics Canada, there were approximately 65,000 restaurants at the start of 2020. That number is probably 40,000 to 45,000 today. No one is quite sure, but this approximation seems fair enough.

Although the sector has recorded fewer than 30 bankruptcies since the start of the pandemic, many operators have simply abandoned the industry.

Despite the difficulties created by the pandemic, the sector is running at about 82 per cent of the capacity it had before the pandemic, according to Statistics Canada.