Indoor dining is back & customers want quality, rewards

Prices may be up, cost of living may be up, but indoor dining is nevertheless back on the menu big time. The recent TouchBistro 2022 Diner Trends Report released Wednesday and based on surveys conducted in June and July found that 44 per cent of consumers are now indoor dining at a restaurant at least […]

Canadian restaurant visits are up over 300% from a year ago

Although prices continue to rise and more and more Canadians are forced to make tough decisions about the spending they can afford, new data from the NPD Group reveals that foodservice industry traffic in Canada reached near pre-pandemic levels in May. The data found that foodservice traffic was just one per cent off its May […]

Complaints about short-staffed restaurants surging in 2022

New data from Yelp has shown that diners are returning to restaurants in droves, flocking to dining rooms in 2022 as the memory of heightened pandemic fears and restrictions fades. That has brought its own problems, though, as complaints about short-staffed restaurants have soared. The new state of the industry report found that customers have […]

Ontario lifts restaurant capacity limits, vaccine mandates to follow

Ontario Premier Doug Ford announced on February 14 that the province is lifting all restaurant capacity limits starting at 12:01 a.m. on February 17, three days ahead of schedule. Mandatory proof of vaccination for restaurant guests will then be scrapped from March 1. Last month, Ontario had released its plan to lift public health measures and restrictions, […]

Indoor dining is back, and patrons are hungry

By Tom Nightingale Canadian restaurants were experiencing a post-pandemic renaissance. Then, the Omicron variant of COVID-19 hit. It might not be quite that simple, but the boiled-down version is that foodservice was rebounding until the full effects of the most recent variant spread were felt earlier this winter. Restaurants had reopened and were finally free […]

Ontario restaurants can reopen indoor dining from January 31

After a brief period of lockdown, Ontario restaurants can reopen for indoor dining once again starting on January 31. Eateries in the province were ordered to shut their dining rooms from January 5 for a minimum period of 26 days. That left outdoor dining, takeout, drive-thru, and delivery as the only operations still on the […]

New Brunswick becomes latest province to lock down dining rooms

Following earlier moves by Quebec and Ontario since late December, New Brunswick has become the latest province to ban indoor dining amid the Omicron variant of COVID-19. Starting January 14, dining rooms across New Brunswick will be closed as just one of numerous new restrictions introduced. The provincial government announced on January 13 that all […]

Ontario joins Quebec in shutting indoor dining once again

Updated January 10, 2021 Restaurant owners and staff would be forgiven for feeling transported back to 2020 in the early days of 2022, as indoor dining shuts down again in some areas in response to the Omicron variant of COVID-19. Quebec blinked first, and Ontario soon followed. The closures are an attempt to stifle the […]

Hosting indoor dining with confidence this winter

By Doug Radkey Consumers and restaurant operators alike are hoping and wanting to get back to “normal”, but as the winter months set in and when patios can no longer withstand the drop in temperatures, there is once again a heightened awareness of caution around indoor dining. Pair this with the daily news of increasing […]