The blended family behind a beloved Halifax, N.S., diner is getting candid about the difficulties facing the business and industry experts say they are not alone.
Easy Street Diner at 3625 Dutch Village Rd. opened in 2021 and while co-owner Kelly-Jo Beck says it’s always felt like “a bit of a knife fight to stay in business,” this year has been the worst.
She and her partner Lalanya both took Monday and Tuesday off this week — the first “weekend” they’ve both taken off all year — only to return to find a power issue tripped a breaker, turning off all the kitchen line fridges and forcing them to open later after having to throw out all the prep.
While the diner is closed on Mondays and Tuesdays, Beck said they’ve been using those days to handle dessert commissions, fulfill catering jobs, finish additional prep for the week, perform deep cleaning, and stay on top of maintenance.
“It is really hard not to feel like we’re being punished by the universe for trying to eke out some semblance of humanity. It’s not even balance at this point, we are literally chasing our basic needs of sleep and nutrition,” Beck wrote in a heartfelt social media post.
“I abhor being vulnerable like this on our business page but it’s getting to that desperation point where I need my community.”
Get daily Halifax news
Beck told Global News that “people talk about profits but really for restaurants these days, if you’re breaking even consistently that’s survival.”
Since her post, she said other area restaurant owners have reached out to her personally to say “we feel you, we see you, we’re feeling the same things.”
“Everyone’s struggling and it’s not hard to see because a lot of businesses have closed in the last year.”
Jordi Morgan, Restaurants Canada vice-president for Atlantic Canada, agreed with those sentiments.
“Consumer habits are changing because of inflation. So people are tipping less, they’re eating out less, they’re not ordering as many dishes as they may have done in the past. And so that’s having a major impact on a lot of restaurants’ bottom lines,” he said.
“Margins are very thin and operators are being really squeezed by the cost of labour, the cost of food.”
The national food service association, which has almost 30,000 members across the country, said in March that the industry is seeing cost increases across the board, including food, equipment, repairs, utilities, wages and insurance.
Still, Morgan didn’t want to paint “too bleak a picture” and said that the industry is hoping for better economic results for the remainder of the year and into 2025.
“We’re hopeful that the broader economic growth picture is going to, I think, show a little light at the end of the tunnel for our operators. … We’re hopeful that governments will pay attention to this sector as an important part of the economy. And we’re hoping that consumers will do their part.”
For your average restaurant-goer looking to make an impact, Duncan Robertson of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business said supporting local business keeps more money in the community.
“We estimate that around 66 cents out of every dollar spent at a small business stays in the local community compared to only 11 cents at a multi-national big box store.”
As for Easy Street Diner, Beck said that since making her social media post, the response from the community has been overwhelmingly positive.
“I know that the last three years we’ve been in business, we’ve created a wonderful community of customers, and a lot of folks really are rooting for us.”
She added the Easy Street Diner is “holding (its) own” for now, that bills are getting paid, and “we’re taking care of our staff first and foremost.”
“Even if business continues as usual, we do have quite a few months in us left.”
— with files from Global News’ Saba Aziz and Emma Convey