While unsure of their own survival, Ottawa restaurants ponder a post-pandemic future
Peter Hum, Ottawa Citizen
Publishing date: 6 hours ago • 5 minute read
For the Ottawa restaurants left standing when the novel coronavirus crisis subsides, there’s going to be a reckoning, says Adam Vettorel.
Furthermore, the chef and co-owner of North & Navy confesses he isn’t sure if his well-regarded fine dining restaurant in Centretown will be among the survivors.
But if North & Navy, which closed its dining room last month in keeping with governmental mandates and shifted to offering takeout and delivery orders, doesn’t go under, then it, along with its peers, will have to scramble to recuperate.
“Every restaurateur is going to come up with a different solution to a big problem,” Vettorel says.
Before the rise of COVID-19, restaurants already faced major risks and challenges. Profit margins had decreased over the years to become paper-thin, with everything from rising rents to more expensive produce to charges for delivery services and reservation systems helping to drive even the most popular eateries toward the red.
And now, since mid-March, many restaurants have closed entirely and laid off most of their staff. Others such as North & Navy prepare takeout fare in a minimally staffed kitchen to mitigate their losses.
The situation is dire. A survey released last week by the national non-profit organization Restaurants Canada suggested that roughly half of Ontario’s independent restaurants don’t expect to survive if the current situation persists for another three months and if there are no further government measures to prop up the industry.
Vettorel says that some of the inevitable closures of Ottawa restaurants will surprise people.
“It has a lot to do with how leveraged the business was before all this started,” he says. “Places that looked like they were doing great from the outside, they were popular… but behind the scenes there was debt, this could wipe them out,” he says.
For now, Vettorel and his peers do what they can to stay afloat until better days arrive. All the while, they’re pondering how their post-pandemic businesses will have to change, whether that’s weeks or months from now. The Ontario government on Monday gave a basic outline for re-opening the province, but it lacked a timeline as well as any specific mention of restaurants.
When restaurants are permitted to open, the prices on menus will be higher. Or, they might be lower, but the food will be more casual. Physical distancing could be the norm in reopened dining rooms. Takeout orders, deliveries or even online sales of pantry items might need to enter into more business models.
In an article posted this month on medium.com, Joelle Parenteau, owner of the fast-food eatery Wolf Down on Bank Street, argued that price hikes at restaurants are long overdue.
“We have to reset the economics,” Parenteau said in an interview. “Consumers have to understand and appreciate the true cost of things.”
Cheap food from franchises and chains may have been easier on customers’ wallets, but it has also put the squeeze on independent restaurants and “driven the industry into the ground,” Parenteau says.
“The silver lining in of all of this is that it really has raised awareness about the plight of small businesses and just how much, if you value them, and you want them to be there, you have to do your part,” Parenteau says.
“We’re not trying to gouge you here. We’re just trying to keep the lights on,” Parenteau says.
The COVID-19 crisis made clear to Parenteau that she wasn’t willing to compromise on ingredients for the sake of selling food. Wolf Down uses custom-made bread from Art-Is-In Bakery for its German street food-style sandwiches. But after Art-Is-In closed because of the pandemic, Wolf Down, rather than use a lesser substitute, stopped offering sandwiches, which had accounted for 80 per cent of its revenues, Parenteau says. Wolf Down now opens on Saturdays only and serves just a few other items.
If the elevated Middle Eastern restaurant Fairouz re-opens, it may well become more casual, says Tony Garcia, one of its owners. “We fear we will not be able to bring it back to the fine-dining levels of before,” he says.
A more casual Fairouz would be cheaper to operate and more affordable for customers, says Garcia. “We don’t feel that people will be coming back with the same purchasing power,” says Garcia. He adds that Fairouz would look at offering takeout and delivery.
Last week, the Saskatchewan government announced a multi-phase plan to lift its pandemic measures, calling for some of the province’s retailers to re-open May 19. Restaurants and bars will open at a later unspecified date, and when they do, they will be allowed to operate at 50 per cent capacity.
Walid El-Tawel, the outgoing chef of Fairouz, anticipates that the apprehensions of customers alone will lead to restaurants being far from packed.
“You can’t expect business to be the same, there’s no way. Social distancing is here to stay,” says El-Tawel, who has taken a new job as a strategic project manager at the Ottawa restaurant supply store C.A. Paradis.
Post-pandemic, it will be vital to appeal to the homebodies, says El-Tawel. “Restaurants that think they’re above takeout have to deflate their egos a little bit,” he says. Also, to reach home cooks, restaurants could diversify their businesses to sell their spice blends or other products online, El-Tawel says.
But Vettorel thinks capping restaurants at half-capacity is problematic. “It sends mixed messages: Are we over this or are we not? The virus is still out there but we’re allowed to take risks?” says Vettorel, whose latest podcast episode addresses COVID-19 and Ottawa restaurants.
Vettorel and other restaurateurs do note that customers deprived these days of dining out are showing tremendous good will and ordering takeout in droves.
“A lot of people have their favourites, that’s a really big part of what they like about their city,” Vettorel says. “This is where I go for pizza or this is where I go for fancy, special occasion dinners. They know there’s a chance they might lose those spots.”
When Ottawa restaurants do re-open, “you’re going to see people coming out to support places,” Vettorel says. “I’m really hoping for that, anyway.”
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