5 years later: Food columnist Jasmine Mangalaseril on how local food businesses survived pandemic lockdowns
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Five years ago, the world as we know it changed.
With the first stay-at-home orders in Canada being enforced mid-March 2020, some businesses adapted to work-from-home protocols.
Restaurants were considered an essential service that remained open but under tight restrictions and so they needed creativity to keep the lights on and rent paid.
Before the pandemic, the food service industry rode a high. Between 2008 and 2018, the sector's GDP growth led all major Canadian industries.
In 2020, total food service sales tumbled by almost 30 per cent. Within a couple of years, a Restaurants Canada survey indicated just more than half were operating at a loss.
Nationally, thousands of restaurants closed permanently, widening the gap between chains and independents. Between 2019 to 2023, the number of chain outlets increased by about 1,100 while independents lost almost 3,100.
Today in Waterloo region and area, restaurant numbers have bounced back. More licenses were issued to businesses in the restaurant category by the end of 2024 than in 2019, with Waterloo seeing the largest total rise (30 per cent).
Community support
Fran Adsett opened her namesake restaurant in 2015, Frannie's, on Highway 7 between Kitchener and Guelph. Her homestyle cooking features fresh, local, in-season ingredients and it earned her a loyal customer base.
Like many, she assumed normality would return after the first stay-at-home order. It didn't. COVID-19 became a blur of 20-hour days in the restaurant while looking for ways to remain open.
This included opening a drive-thru for pre-ordered pick-ups ranging from butter tart sundaes to barbecue to fish and chips. Some customers pre-ordered 20 pies at a time to hand out to neighbours and friends.
"The amount of people that said, 'You know what, friend? Don't worry 'cause we're here to support you,'" recalled Adsett.
She introduced ready meals, including shepherd's pie and lasagna, something she's continued to do.
Adsett acquired the lease next door and opened a seasonal ice cream shop. She set up a roadside produce centre featuring locally-sourced foods. Today, as people renew their search for local items, she's planning to bring back the produce centre this summer.
"I just find that you always have to be ready to move mountains or whatever you have to do," said Adsett. "I work too hard to be where I am, to just let it crumble."
Tough cookie
Lou Gazzola spent 18 months in planning and concept testing, and a couple of months renovating his Waterloo cookie bakery. The plan was that university students and corporate clients were to be his key markets.
Sweet Lou's Cookies opened just days before stay-at-home orders came down.
Many students returned home. Businesses stopped hosting events and team meetings. So, he focused on other ways of getting his cookies into customer mouths.
"What we had to do was focus on the delivery…and in-store pickup," explained Gazzola. "We had to extend our hours into the daytime and open longer hours [for workers ending their night shifts]."
He could have gone in many directions to establish the shop's footing, but he stuck to his business plan. They brought in ice cream (for sandwiches and shakes) and donated cookies to first responders and social services.
"We do all sorts of support work in the community, and the community just gives back to us," said Gazzola. "We didn't advertise that we were doing that, but people knew and so they would come in and support us."
Virtual reality
Chefs Kirstie Herbstreit and Jody O'Malley opened The Culinary Studio in 2011, with a teaching kitchen and communal table for 20. By 2020, they were catering, selling grab-and-go meals and their classes sold out six months in advance.
As the pandemic's disruption stretched beyond the first two weeks, they had tens of thousands of dollars in registrations for classes they couldn't deliver.
Herbstreit's chance encounter with a student, who asked about online classes, changed the course of their business.
"And I said, 'Would you sign up?'," said Herbstreit. "And she was like, 'Oh yeah. We're so bored'."
Their first online class included cook-along meal kits registrants could purchase.
"The longer we went on, the more we refined and made the online world our space, it didn't make sense to go back to in-person," said O'Malley.
They closed the physical cooking school and now have a warehouse from where curated ingredient kits are distributed.
"Our titles changed from chef-owners to co-founders and chefs. We have a tech company that can reach so many more people," said O'Malley. "You just have to see the positive of it all. You can't go back. You can't go backwards."
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