For lack of profitability, manpower and motivation, restaurant owners prefer to wait for their dining room to reopen rather than make take-out meals, the only possible scenario since December 30.
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Antonin Mousseau-Rivard, craftsman behind the gourmet restaurant Le Mousso, no longer wanted to relive the experience lived in the last two.
“I do not want to relaunch myself in take-out meals for the moment,” he sums up. According to him, “the effort that it requires does not add to the profitability that it makes”, he adds.
Other elements, such as the “staggering” cost of the containers, demotivated him to relive such an experience.
“I prefer to try to cut so that there is as little leakage as possible without making any money and living with the subsidies offered”, concludes the chief.
Elisabeth Cardin, co-owner of the restaurant Le Manitoba, in Montreal, temporarily closed her establishment in October for lack of manpower. For her, there was no question of starting to serve her customers again in cardboard boxes, an experience that she did not like.
The offer of his restaurant, focused on the culinary experience and Quebec products, did not lend itself well to take-out meals, adds that which loses “less money to be closed than to try to survive”.
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Customers less at the rendezvous
Francis Rodrigue, who owns six restaurants in Greater Montreal, has decided not to offer take-out meals in half of his establishments.
In his restaurant Jellyfish, in the Old Port of Montreal, the turnover generated by take-out meals represented 10% of his normal sales before restriction.
The latter notes that customers show less solidarity with restaurateurs compared to the first wave, in April 2020.
COURTESY PHOTO
Francis Rodrigue
“At some point, when it’s been three times you’ve been shut down, the solidarity movement fades,” says one who notes discouragement among clients and staff.
Luis W. Corcuera, owner of the Peruvian restaurant Pachamama, on Saint-Hubert street in Montreal, can see it in his sales. For him, there are at least half the number of online orders at the moment than at the start of the pandemic.
“It’s not like it used to be,” says the one who also observes greater competition in the sector.
According to him, the closure of several economic sectors means that people have less money to spend in restaurants.
Uncertain about the duration of this other closure, the latter is currently evaluating various possibilities, including that of closing his restaurant on the first days of the week.
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Between 35 and 40% of usual turnover according to the ARQ
In surveys carried out in May and July 2020, the Association Restauration Québec (ARQ) indicates that take-out and delivery orders represent only 35 to 40% of usual turnover.
“This is not a panacea,” said vice-president of public and government affairs, Martin Vézina, by email.
According to him, take out and delivery orders are not always synonymous with profit for restaurateurs, but it allows them “to keep their key employees in post and avoid losing them when they reopen if they lay them off. “.