“People are spending less”: B.C. Restaurants and Food Services Association

BC Restaurants and Food Services Association and President CEO Ian Tostenson says roughly half of all restaurants in the province are either breaking even or losing money.

This after a Restaurants Canada Report stated three in four Canadians are eating out less often and while conditions have improved over the past year – it’s still a challenging market.

Tostenson said a lot of centres saw lots of customers come to their establishments over the summer but aren’t splurging as much compared to years past.

“What we are finding in British Columbia is people are spending less. People want to go out in British Columbia based on what we saw and they might be inclined to share a pizza instead of having a pizza or having one glass of wine instead of two.”

This comes at a time where the average check at establishments has gone down since the tariffs by American President Donald Trump went into effect.

He added the cost in government red tape and regulation has also been a hindrance within the industry as well as the 16-thousand job vacancies for cooks and chefs.

“We are trying to stabilize the skilled foreign worker program for cooks and chefs. An interesting point there is we are probably short upwards of 16,000 cooks and chefs in B.C. for our restaurants and we are only graduating 800 people out of culinary school.”

“You’d be really surprised in how much cost there is in red tape. We are moving hard with the government to reduce that fee because for example, the strike that is underway right now is taking away time for an operator in operating their business and guest relations.”

“Now they are scrambling to find inventories.”

Tostenson mentioned restaurants in B.C. are doing their best to walk the fine line between keeping prices in line with what customers can afford to pay while also keeping the doors open.

“If we rolled it all up and had proper margins, a hamburger would be about $30 on a menu. That is how we have been suppressing the prices in our menus to keep them attractive to our guests and not scare them away because once you start going down the road of rising prices, then the whole conditions of dining will worsen.”

A recent Restaurants Canada report suggested Canadians still want to dine out or order in, but they’re looking for more value for their dollar when they do.