‘Just a smaller piece of pie’ Eateries drop days, switch serving hours as costs climb, customers not yet back at pre-pandemic levels By: Gabrielle Piché Posted: 6:14 PM CDT Friday, May. 24, 2024

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If Jay Lekopoy had his way, his restaurant would be open all week.

For now, Mondays and Tuesdays are off the table.

“It only makes sense for us,” said Promenade Brasserie’s owner.

He bought the Provencher Boulevard hub in 2023 with a vision of daily service and weekend dining lasting until midnight. However, customers aren’t coming through the door as often as he’d hoped.

Meanwhile, operating costs — food, labour, utilities — have inflated with no hint of a decline.

Across Manitoba, restaurants have slashed their operating hours to match demand, contend with staff shortages and save money. Throughout the country, almost half of restaurants aren’t profitable, according to an April Restaurants Canada survey.

Lekopoy is mindful of the cost increases he’s experiencing — a wine glass isn’t as cheap as it was — and how it affects customers when he raises the price of a meal.

Still, businesses need to turn a profit, Lekopoy noted: “if you’re not… it’s really hard to keep the doors open.”

He believes inflation and higher interest rates are pinching people’s wallets, leading to fewer customers. He views restaurants as an “entertainment cost.”

“There’s just a smaller piece of pie in people’s budgets to be able to… afford (it),” Lekopoy relayed.

Still, more people have been entering his French-Métis eatery. He regularly discusses extending operations to six days per week with his chef.

In a perfect but realistic world, Promenade Brasserie will serve customers daily next spring. An additional day of operations — Monday or Tuesday — might be doable this fall, Lekopoy forecasted.

Robert Johnson also hopes to return to daily service. His enterprise, D-Jay’s Restaurant, served customers on Mondays pre-pandemic.

It can’t now because of a lack of staff, Johnson relayed. The other operational changes — closing earlier, starting later — are due to demand.

D-Jay’s hours reflect the restaurant’s busiest times.

“If you think you can make money, you’re going to operate,” Johnson stated, adding “the late night crowd is hard to get.”

He’s clocked a change in consumer behaviour: fewer people are coming out; patrons aren’t visiting as late.

Johnson estimates his restaurant sees 60 per cent of the traffic it did pre-pandemic. Things are still good, and more people are returning, he said — but the volume could be higher.

In general, Manitoba restaurants are intaking about 75 per cent of the foot traffic they did before the COVID-19 pandemic hit, according to Shaun Jeffrey, executive director of the Manitoba Restaurant and Foodservices Association.

Pre-2020, it was nearly unheard of for a restaurant to lessen its operating hours, Jeffrey said. He expects reduced hours to be a long-term trend as the “monumental challenges” the industry faces persist.

Eateries have been forced to find “efficiencies” amid higher operating costs, dealing with pandemic-era debt and fewer customers, Jeffrey described.

Bonfire Bistro switched its hours — and eliminated Sundays — to align with its busiest moments. Sales weren’t consistent week to week.

Closed Mondays

“It makes more sense now,” said co-owner and waitress Ann Lynn, adding she prefers the new model. “As a server, you want the hours… but from a business perspective, it totally makes sense.”

Manitoba’s minimum wage increased $3.35 over the span of a year ending in October of 2023. By lessening restaurant hours, Bonfire Bistro employs its staff effectively and covers labour shortages, Lynn expressed.

Christina Tennis, a server at Colosseo Ristorante Italiano, echoed Lynn by calling every day “a hit or miss” with sales. Colosseo is no longer open Mondays.

Customers have asked Rae and Jerry’s to restart Monday lunches — in part, because so many restaurants are closed during the workday, said owner Adam Rodin.

The long-standing restaurant was once notorious for its lunch rushes. It began serving noon fare in May after a years-long pause.

Rodin decided to launch three days of lunch per week — “scary” in itself, he explained — to test demand and staff up.

So far, so good, Rodin said.

“What’s neat about being open for lunch is… you see the life come back to the restaurant in a different kind of way,” the new owner explained.

He’d heard from seniors and business groups who wanted Rae and Jerry’s lunches again. One reason for the long pause was because typical midday customers were working from home. A recent return to the office has helped, Rodin stated.

He’s considering adding lunch on Mondays and Tuesdays this fall.

There has been a shift in customers’ attitudes lately, remarked Lekopoy from Promenade Brasserie.

It’s less transactional: patrons are asking about the food and the processes in the kitchen. It feels like the restaurant is community-building, and it’s perhaps a sign of people wanting connection during this post-pandemic state, Lekopoy reflected.

“Yes, you’re buying food, but also, it’s a benchmark for normal,” he said of restaurants. “It’s a normal, human need to eat face to face.”

Not all restaurants have reinvented their hours, noted Dave Schultz, co-owner of Saucers Cafe. His business has returned to its pre-pandemic routine, albeit “gradually.”

gabrielle.piche@winnipegfreepress.com