It’s hoped that New Brunswickers will begin filling bars and restaurants again today after the lifting of COVID-19 restrictions.
The Vice President for the Atlantic Division of Restaurants Canada Luc Erjavec says owners are excited after a long tough two years, “Of course, they are a little bit nervous how their customers are going to respond, how the staff are going to respond. But our sense is the vast majority of customers and staff are going to be more than happy to get rid of their masks and get back to some sort of normalcy.”
He says restaurants owners expect there will be hesitation from some customers, who feel restrictions were lifted too quickly, but Erjavec says they will continue working very hard to ensure all customers are kept safe.
Erjavec adds it’s also a bittersweet day, because of the number of restaurants that were forced out of business, due to the pandemic, “68 per cent of restaurants were losing money. 11 per cent were breaking even. Numbers like that and there have been similar numbers throughout the last two years. Many did not survive. Others that did survive have accumulated thousands of dollars in debt.”
Erjavec adds it’s difficult to say exactly how many closed their doors though as a result of COVID-19.
He says it is going to be very difficult to work through the debt and regain sales.
They don’t expect sales to return to 2019 levels until 2023.
