‘The restaurant business has been a difficult one’: RnR shutters last site

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This article was published 27/06/2024 (461 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The final RnR Family Restaurant has been put to rest.

Both retirement and industry challenges — higher operating costs, lower foot traffic — contributed to the former Perkins location shuttering June 24, according to business partner Roger Perron.

“You’ve got to make money,” Perron stated. And that was a challenge, he added.

The Portage Avenue site closure follows the similar fate of RnR’s two former locations. At the beginning of 2023, Perron cited a lack of returning customers as part of the reason for ending RnR’s McPhillips Street operations.

The demographics had shifted, he noted, adding there were rising food and labour costs, and mounting debt.

RnR closed its Regent Avenue eatery in November. The lease was up; owners didn’t renew for the above reasons, Perron said.

RnR Family Restaurant owned 2675 Portage Ave., its final standing location. Many partners were investors when the Perkins chain opened on the site in the mid-1990s.

The group reached a point where they no longer wanted to be in the restaurant industry, Perron relayed. They were aging; some had died. Perron, 71, is retiring.

“The restaurant business has been a difficult one,” he commented. “You feel bad for (the customers), but as a business decision, you have no choice but to close up.

“If you can’t make any money, why do what you’re doing?”

During the COVID-19 pandemic, three Winnipeg Perkins site underwent a rebrand, becoming RnR Family Restaurants. Perkins had struggled both locally and internationally; in August 2019, its parent company filed for bankruptcy for the second time in less than a decade.

RnR’s Portage Avenue location staffed 30 people. Those who stayed until the final day received a severance package based on their work hours and years of service, Perron said.

The ownership group sold the property.

A City of Winnipeg sign faces Portage Avenue, notifying passersby of a possible zoning change allowing for a multi-family development, such as an apartment block. Landmark Planning & Design is leading the project’s engagement process.

Shaun Jeffrey, executive director of the Manitoba Restaurants & Foodservices Association, called the final RnR Family Restaurant shuttering “sad.”

“Any time we lose restaurants, it’s kind of a shot in the foot of our industry,” Jeffrey said.

Pandemic-era debt is stressing many in the industry, he continued. (Perron had admitted pandemic debt was a weight for RnR.)

“You look at an operator like RnR — if it’s not gonna happen, it’s more or less a ‘cut your losses and move on’ kind of thing,” Jeffrey said. “It’s sad to see, because we’re going to continue to lose restaurants.”

Roughly a year ago, the average Manitoba restaurant carried $65,000 of pandemic-era debt, according to the association’s most recent data.

Eateries across the country are struggling, Jeffrey asserted. Locally, restaurants have cut their operating hours and some have begun taking credit card numbers to ensure patrons follow through with reservations.

Jeffrey continuously calls for more support from the provincial and federal governments.

“With all the restaurants that have closed down, it’s even more important now to support the ones that are open,” said Jeline Opina, owner of Fruit de la Vie Juice Co.

The Portage Avenue smoothie and juice bar thrived during the pandemic, building its customer base through online sales, she said. It opened a second location near Inkster Gardens.

Sales typically slow in the summer, but also, people seem to be pulling back on non-essential spending, Opina noted.

“We need customers to come in,” she said of local businesses.

gabrielle.piche@winnipegfreepress.com