OTTAWA – Ivan Gedz’s downtown Ottawa restaurant felt the effects of coronavirus even before the provincial government ordered businesses closed, before takeout became the only way to get a meal you didn’t cook yourself.“We were seeing a significant 10 to 15 per cent drop each of the nights leading up to the final week and then we were seeing 20 to 25 per cent drops.”
Union Local 613 focuses on refined southern cuisine with local ingredients, and has an extensive cocktail list with a special bar hidden behind a fake bookcase. It opened in 2012 and has been doing steady business ever since. “There is going to still be a demand and an increased demand for those applications merely because people are going to be used to them.”
“We will definitely be able to reopen. The question is whether the decisions we made were made correctly, and whether we will be able to service the debts.” “How much have their dining patterns changed, how much have their lifestyle patterns changed?” he said. “I have no illusions, restaurants are your disposable income.”Before COVID, part of that disposable income landed in the hands of Alex Mackay-Smith and his wife, Juniper Turgeon, who run Juniper Farms, just on the other side of the provincial border nestled in the Gatineau Hills near Wakefield, Que.
“Farmers are gamblers and I could have cashed in my chips, but I have decided to play the game for this season of unknown,” he said. “We had to make decisions, we had to start seedlings in our greenhouses. It takes a while to farm, it’s not like food just happens.” Prior to COVID-19, this was going to be an expansion year, with plans to drain a flooded portion of the land to make it suitable for planting.
He said they’re now adjusting on the fly, hoping to sell more at the farm gate so they will have other sales if the restaurants don’t return.He said working with restaurants was an exciting opportunity. “Weeding it, maintaining it, harvesting it, that is a whole other onslaught of labour and if we aren’t able to move the food we are just going to till it in, drop it back into the soil.”
“They are my friends. They are not just my clients,” he said. “It is one of those things, where it’s hard to go out to a fine dining establishment when you are strapped for cash.” Stalwart last made news when a label for its popular Dr. Feelgood IPA was rejected by the LCBO, Ontario’s provincial liquor board. The board felt a picture of the Rod of Asclepius — a snake curled around a pole associated with the Greek god of medicine — suggested the beer had medicinal benefits. The beer was rebranded as Snake Oil IPA.
He said he and his partners in the four-year-old brewery don’t have a crystal ball, but they’re hopeful their business will survive, maybe with a new avenue.
Local production should stay open to avoid to buy products from outside. The government should promote local industries first to give a chance for a restart of the economy. Government talk, now they have to act.
No, government policy has devastated it.
i feel terrible for the small restaurants that will have to close because of this
Corporate bailouts (Bolsheviks) Mensheviks 'go fish'