Locally-owned restaurant clinging to survival during COVID-19 pandemic

Even during his busiest moments these days, Jonathan Tyson is wondering how much longer his business can continue to scrape by in these uncertain times.

The owner of Saskatoon’s Pink Cadillacs Malt Shop and Diner is part of the global shift from business owners, who are attempting to manage and run operations normally during the COVID-19 pandemic.

In the less than three weeks since the pandemic arrived in Saskatchewan, Tyson has adapted all of his health and safety protocols, while limiting interactions, hours and costs.

“You know you got to change in order to survive, and we’re not a delivery place normally,” Tyson said of the array of changes in recent weeks.

“You pride yourself on being a sit-in restaurant with a great atmosphere, but now things have changed a lot.”

Losses were felt immediately, according to Tyson. Sales started dropping even before the province declared a state of emergency on March 18. And take-out and delivery requests picked up in the void of customers choosing to stay away.

Since that time, the phone has been ringing constantly, but not enough to ease the struggle of keeping a profit.

Tyson closed one of his two locations, has limited staff, reduced workers on his kitchen line from four to two, scrapped delivery fees and reduced his reliance on SkipTheDishes and its 25 per cent share of the bill that comes with the service.

Another eventual blow dealt to Pink Cadillacs was the province reducing restaurants to delivery or pickup only, earlier this week.

The question Tyson asks himself is how does a restaurant stay afloat when public gatherings are banned?

“Truth be known, if it goes on for another month or two months, you won’t be able to reopen fully,” Tyson said. “That’s the thing I’m struggling with now is, ‘What do I do?'”

Costs for his two leases are more than $20,000 a month. Adding in costs of heating, power and salaries, the losses are slowly becoming insurmountable.

Tyson is wondering whether he should reopen his Willowgrove location to try and recoup some of the losses he is facing, but still can’t see a path moving forward where reopening will help since his customers are also facing financial uncertainty.

“Honestly, it’s at the point of this: I’m either going to lose $1000 a day or I’m going to lose $500 a day,” Tyson said. “Being open, I lose about $500 a day.”

Even with problems piling up daily, Tyson is still finding ways to help people.

He answered a call to deliver groceries to a grandmother taking care of two grandchildren while the parents were travelling outside Canada. That led to roughly 100 calls for food delivery once Tyson put the word out on Facebook. Now he’s working to arrange hampers of food at a severely reduced price.

Support from multiple levels of government is a much-needed help, but it still can’t produce the same results a bustling lunch hour would.

“I don’t know what else I can do,” Tyson said.

Even with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announcing a 75 per cent wage subsidy for small and medium businesses on Friday, Tyson can’t see an equation where he remains in business long term.

“I don’t think a lot of people understand. That’s 75 per cent of your tax deductions — you still pay your staff. It’s just the money that you remit to the government that they’re giving you a break on,” he said.

The problem isn’t limited to Pink Cadillacs. Tyson has spoken to other restaurant owners that are worried about the piling expenses that need to be paid back once the pandemic is over.

“Last year was tough on a lot of people. You saw a lot of restaurants close last year. It was a rough year. This happening now just when things were starting to turn around — it’s almost like a nail in your coffin,” Tyson said.

“How long can I last for? I don’t know.”