Cost pressures, staffing shortages stressing restaurant owners as pandemic drags on

Doreen McDonald boasts proudly about her restaurant's long-standing reputation for delivering a mouth-watering plate of fish and chips, one of the specialities at Wild Horses Pub and Eatery.

But she's not quite as upbeat when it comes to talking about the increasing cost of preparing the food she serves to customers at her Portugal Cove-St. Philip's business.

She uses words like astronomical to describe the increasing cost of doing business as the pandemic drags on and supply bottlenecks and global production issues push her and others to the brink.

With business already down by roughly 40 per cent because of the COVID-19 pandemic, she's now coping with a sharp spike in the price — and sometimes the availability — of everything from cooking oil and propane to disposable gloves and potatoes.

Like many small businesses, an acute staffing shortage is only adding to the uncertainty, forcing her to reduce business hours.

"I don't make any money. I haven't made any money in two years," McDonald said recently.

As winter approaches, meaning fewer people walking through the doors and government pandemic supports drying up, McDonald believes she may soon have to face a harsh reality: to keep struggling to stay afloat, or to put Wild Horses out to pasture permanently.

"I'm to the point now I have to make enough to pay a salary and pay overhead each week, and if I can't do it, then it's over," she said.

Her biggest concern? The fate of her small staff.

"I hate the thought of having to tell the staff there's no more work. It's done. So I keep pushing on, hoping that this year coming up might be different with more people vaccinated. But if much more goes onto the cost of things, it's going to be too hard," she said.

CBC News spoke to a handful of restaurant owners in recent days who say they're being buffeted by a steady barrage of challenges, with the requirement to screen all customers to ensure they are fully vaccinated being the latest financial hit.

The owner of one large restaurant in the St. John's area, who asked not to be named, said his monthly expenses for four essentials — propane, chicken wings, beef and canola oil — has gone up by $11,000 in the past year.

On top of that, the owner said he's paying double the price for staples, such as bacon, while also absorbing increases to the minimum wage and insurance rates.

Thousands of restaurants across Canada have closed since the onset of the pandemic, but Doreen McDonald hopes she can avoid that fate.