High food prices are forcing London restaurant owners to make hard choices

Before the sun rises and the first customers arrive, Dora Rzeszutek unlocks the front door of B & B Snack Bar restaurant in London's Woodfield neighbourhood.

The 32-year employee, and now owner of the diner, used to have staff open in the mornings. Now, to save money, she does it alone, putting on coffee and checking grocery flyers to see where coffee, bacon or eggs might be cheapest that week.

“It's surviving times,” Rzeszutek said, noting the ways rising and unpredictable food prices have forced her to make changes she never imagined, including cutting staff hours, working longer days herself, and shopping across the city to chase deals.

She’s not alone.

Across Canada, restaurant owners are grappling with rising food costs that have reshaped the economics of running a small business.

According to Statistics Canada, the Consumer Price Index for food purchased from restaurants reached a record high in 2024, with prices continuing to climb into late 2025.

But while national data tracks averages, local owners say it doesn’t reflect the day-to-day reality of running a kitchen.

B & B Snack Bar restaurant has been a staple in London since 1953, serving breakfast and lunch. This is the first time Rzeszutek has had to buy ingredients wherever they’re cheapest that week.

“I really have to go to many, many different places and buy one thing here and everything over there,” she says. “You have to look at the flyers and specials in the stores and then buy when it’s on sale.”

That extra effort adds transportation costs to an already tight budget.

Gerry Rozo, owner of Grill 23 in the downtown Talbot Centre Mall, cooks with a lot of meat, including beef that's seen prices spike this past year.

“As restaurant owners, you always want to hit that target of 25 per cent for food cost out of your total sales,” Rozo says. He adds that if your recipes are standardized and prices move a little its manageable.

But those fluctuations, he says, have grown far more extreme.

“Our food costs used to be nice and tight at 25 per cent or under,” he says. “Now we’re seeing 35, sometimes 40 per cent. And when you try to put a plan in place, the price fluctuates again.”