Canadian Restaurants Are Fighting to Save Themselves and Their Communities: Here’s How You Can Help

In Canada, “the restaurant industry” means the 100,000 or so small businesses that employ more than a million people. With no small thanks to you (and all of us, really) restaurants contributed $93 billion to our economy last year.

And right now, your neighbourhood restaurant really needs you. Sure, you can’t go and sit at the bar and represent over a bite and a beer; but take a look at how, since mid–March, restaurants have found new ways to show the spirit that makes them our favourite places to eat, drink and hang out.

The spirit shone brighter even as shutdown orders hit everywhere: Independent restaurants, bars, cafés and their workers quickly mobilized and banded together to help each other, their colleagues and others in their communities. We’ve rounded up just a sampling of what’s happening across the country.  

Support for Restaurant Workers

With up to half of Canada’s independent restaurants facing an indefinite shutdown, hundreds of thousands of workers are left struggling to make ends meet. Jessica Cytryn and Kaitlin Doucette acted within days of Quebec’s self–isolation order to establish the Montreal Restaurant Workers Relief Fund (MRWRF) – one of the earliest employee–focused fundraising efforts in the country. With GoFundMe donations and partner initiative purchases amounting to over $111,000, the MRWRF has already provided support for 569 workers and is determined to widen its reach. “A good way to contribute is by spreading the word among your network,” says Cytryn. “The wider the reach, the more people we can help.”

Similar emergency relief funds have since popped up in other cities – such as the Toronto Restaurant Workers Relief Fund and the Vancouver Food and Beverage Community Relief Fund – and the Canadian Hospitality Workers Relief Fund (CHWRF) is offering one–time, $500 grants to anyone working in the wider hospitality sector facing a shortage of work. The fund, established by a coalition of restaurant groups and Uber Eats, is giving out 20,000 grants in a first wave that began on May 6. The need is unprecedented, so the aim is to grow the fund and keep helping. “We never thought we could be affected by something like this,” says CHWRF spokesperson, restaurateur and Air Canada Culinary Partner Vikram Vij. “In extreme circumstances we may have had to close for a few days or a week, but six weeks or six months? Restaurant businesses and workers have no protection against that.”

Many restaurants have opted for a “pay now, eat the food you love later” model to help keep their business and employees afloat. In Calgary, Eatlater.ca started as a single point to purchase gift cards for many local restaurants, before recently growing to support businesses from coast to coast. And the non–profit Breaking Bread is an online hub connecting consumers to more than 1,500 eateries, wineries, breweries and grocery delivery services across Canada, with a search engine to help you quickly find that pad thai or fried chicken you’ve been craving.

Sinopoli is also a co–founder of SaveHospitality.ca, a cross–Canada coalition of restaurants (now in the hundreds) petitioning for reforms and sector–specific stimulus – such as forgivable loans and bans on commercial evictions – to help small businesses recover from the financial disaster caused by Covid–19. “We are a huge part of the economy, but we don’t get the equivalent attention,” Sinopoli says. “So we’re asking people, if you care about restaurants and other small businesses, to call or write your city, provincial and federal representative, and ask them to back our cause.”  

Feeding People in Need

When the first rumblings of forced restaurant closures began in Winnipeg, chef and catering business owner Ben Kramer’s first thought was about all of the people who would be out of work. His second was about the food. He put a call out on Instagram for donations (after his landlord first confirmed he could continue to use his kitchen rent–free) so that he and his crew could rescue food and put together meals for the Main Street Project, helping Winnipeg’s homeless community. The response was overwhelming: He received food from establishments spanning roadside diners to CBNR 2017 longlister Clementine Cafe to Hy’s Steakhouse. “I figured it would be a handful of restaurants, but it blew up and ended up being 50 or 60,” he says. “I think we processed over $100,000 worth of food in two weeks.” While the project has since wrapped up (the goal was to put leftover food to good use immediately following the first closures) Kramer is now working with Community Food Centres Canada’s Made with Love program to provide ready–to–heat meals for the NorWest Co–op Community Food Centre.

In Montreal, St–Hubert Street’s famed Montréal Plaza recently partnered with Accueil Bonneau, a centre for the homeless and at–risk in Old Montreal, to provide meals for anyone sheltering at the Royal Victoria Hospital, which has been converted to an isolation unit for people who have tested positive for Covid–19 or are awaiting test results. The restaurant is providing Royal Vic residents with some 4,000 sandwiches every week.

In Vancouver, Chef David Hawksworth, owner of the acclaimed Hawksworth, Nightingale and Bel Café, and Air Canada Culinary Partner, has been regularly serving meals to doctors and nurses at St. Paul’s Hospital through his Feed the Frontlines initiative. Winnipeg’s restaurant community has also stepped up to provide meals for frontline workers with several programs. Another Toronto initiative, Feed the Frontlines TO, has raised $226,460 to make and deliver meals to healthcare workers, from restaurants including Pukka, Five Doors North, Little Sister Indonesian Food Bar, Pomegranate Restaurant and Tabule.  

Restaurants Paying It Forward

Over the last two months, those who are still able to operate through online orders have rallied to donate a portion of their sales to others who are in need. Chefs in Montreal have tapped into the rise in home cooking with CBNR alumni Elena launching two digital cookbooks, Elena: Remember Skin Contact?, filled with their own recipes, and Elena and Friends: A Tight–Knit (But Socially Distanced) Community Cookbook featuring contributions from some of Montreal’s top chefs, both of which benefit the Montreal Restaurant Workers Relief Fund. Food journalist (and enRoute contributor) Amie Watson released Quarantine Cooking, benefitting the same cause.