More and more restaurateurs are having difficulty making ends meet and the drop in the number of restaurant permits proves it.
There have therefore been almost 2,000 fewer permits each year since the pandemic. Thus, at the end of 2023, there were 26,713 permits issued by the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food of Quebec (MAPAQ) compared to 28,456 at the same date in 2019.
Furthermore, the Association Restauration Québec also noted an increase in bankruptcies with 406 in 2023 compared to 216 in 2021. The situation is not improving since there were 68 last January, 67 in February and 55 in March .
These figures can be explained in particular by the end of government aid while restaurateurs must now repay the loans granted to them during the pandemic.
“Certain establishments have more difficulty getting there or have perhaps made bad calculations, in the sense that we expected to be able to repay these loans by imagining that the situation would perhaps return [comme] before the pandemic,” explained the Director of Public and Governmental Affairs of the Association Restauration Québec to TVA Nouvelles.
According to her, one way to help restaurateurs a little would be to encourage payment by debit card rather than by credit card, because the debit card fees are lower for them.
