Canada United encourages supporting local restaurants (2 photos)

Saultites are being encouraged to get out and enjoy a meal at local restaurants, especially those which are locally owned.

August 28 to 30 marks ‘Canada United,’ described as a nationwide movement to show local businesses some love.

“We strongly encourage the community to support our local restaurateurs...this weekend is (the local version of) Canada United, an excellent opportunity to really show how important our local business community is. This is one weekend where we really want to show and highlight what small business is to our community,” said Rory Ring, Sault Ste. Marie Chamber of Commerce CEO, speaking to SooToday.

The need to support local restaurants is real.

“In 2019, food service generated over $93 billion in sales (nationwide) and was on track to surpass $100 billion in sales in 2021. Due to the pandemic, however, the restaurant industry could now lose between $21.7 billion and $44.8 billion in annual sales this year,” according to a Restaurants Canada news release issued Thursday.

Ring said it’s also important to note the local outlets of big restaurant chains (such as McDonald’s and Tim Hortons, as examples) are owned by local franchisees and create local jobs, and thus also worthy of local customer support.

“Businesses have really had to pivot. The challenge for us in Sault Ste. Marie and northern Ontario is the fact that fall is coming and the City has already notified patios will be expected to be shut down at the end of September. We can get snow and we have to make sure the City has the ability to do snow removal to keep our sidewalks safe, so that’s another really big challenge when you’ve got restaurants that are going to be limited in terms of indoor dining (due to COVID restrictions).”

With that, Ring said “delivery is going to be a huge part of how businesses will have to pivot. We’re trying to ensure there will be a way for local purchasing and local delivery (of food orders from restaurants). We’ve got local delivery companies, and a cab company, that have had to pivot into that delivery mode...for people to dine at home. That’s going to be a significant part of what’s going to happen during the winter months until we can get back to when we can dine outside.”

“We were pretty nervous (when the province’s COVID-19 shutdown came in March),” said Jane McGoldrick, East Street Pizza owner/operator.

“We didn't know what was going to happen, if we were going to be able to stay open or close our doors like other restaurants in town, and we were a new business which just opened in October. It was a pretty scary situation for myself.”

“Thankfully they allowed takeout restaurants to remain open so we didn’t have to close, so we were fortunate in the whole ordeal. Our dining area was closed but we’re mostly takeout anyway, with a pretty small dining area so it didn’t affect us too greatly.”

McGoldrick said she was glad to go ahead with her patio plans at East Street Pizza when the province allowed patios to open, benefiting from an abundance of warm, rain-free weather this summer.

“We were able to retain all our employees (unlike other restaurants),” McGoldrick said, with seven employees at East Street Pizza.

McGoldrick said she was able to take advantage of federal government COVID aid.

“We’re concerned, as cold and flu season approaches, with COVID to worry about as well, anxious about a sudden spike in cases and what that would mean for the rest of Ontario and Canada, but I hope people just still choose to spend money with small businesses. We’re resilient at the best of times but this COVID is unprecedented. We had to reinvent ourselves in a matter of weeks, even days.”

McGoldrick said she knows of business owners who pulled the plug on their businesses altogether, weary of challenges faced by small business owners at the best of times and not ready to adjust to COVID measures.

“It’s just been extremely challenging but we’re super blessed and fortunate that we have the space we do have and we have the takeout business that we do have. We’ve spent some money on advertising our takeout, refining that process with online ordering. I don’t want to say it was easy but it was easier for us. I can’t imagine what larger dining establishments (went through)...I think the stimulus funding the government gave us was generous but it wasn’t enough and we have another winter coming up and people are nervous.”

“I think the light at the end of the tunnel through all this is people are really seeing first hand the importance of small businesses and the value they add to the community. The best advice I can give anybody is stick together, be kind to each other and ‘support local.’ Come in and see us, we love to see you, we like to deliver to you, be a part of our lives and we’ll get through it together,” McGoldrick said.

The COVID shutdown in March was a shock to John Armstrong, coming just six weeks after he officially opened the doors as the new owner/operator of the locally iconic Ernie's Coffee Shop.

“The day it came down I was told that anyone who’s in there eating, they’ve got to get out. I was open for an hour that day.”

Armstrong closed Ernie’s doors during the worst of COVID, not concentrating on takeout but instead rolling up his sleeves and working as a labourer north of the Sault to pay his bills, suddenly finding himself as an employee instead of an employer.

He said he did not qualify for federal government COVID aid.

“I was in the worst possible position you could ever think of...this just came out of nowhere and I thought ‘what am I going to do?’ but it just made me work harder to keep this business going.”

“I opened a second time (after COVID restrictions eased) but I opened something I was even more proud about,” Armstrong stating he buys as much as he can from local food suppliers for his menu, as well as buying from local suppliers of lumber when he was allowed to build and open a patio.

Now reopened with a staff of eight, Armstrong said business at Ernie’s is good.

Aware he’ll have to take down his patio soon, Armstrong said he’ll educate customers on COVID precautions, hoping for every seat at Ernie’s to be filled with customers.

“Come out and forget about it (COVID) for a couple of hours...come in for a coffee, fries or the most extravagant plate we have,” he said of the upcoming Canada United weekend.