Considered the most lucrative holiday, Easter weekend is synonymous with tens of thousands of dollars in financial losses for restaurants without power due to blizzards.
“We lost everything,” said Nathalie Côté, co-owner of La Brasserie Bernard. Flank steak, salmon, prawns, oysters: Outremont restaurant’s fridges are full and the kitchen is busy preparing for the long Easter holiday. But a power outage that hit the establishment from Wednesday through Sunday ultimately led to food losses at $15,000. Food items that should have landed on consumers’ plates ended up in the trash.
Along with food, Mme Cote posted further losses in anticipation of a busy weekend. “These are also sales we didn’t make and I have employees who have lost wages. »
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Photo by Martin Tremblay, The Press
Like many restaurants on the island of Montreal, La Brasserie Bernard in the Outremont district was hit hard by last week’s power outage caused by a blizzard.
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Photo by Martin Tremblay, The Press
The fridges are full and lots of preparations have been made for the long Easter break.
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Photo by Martin Tremblay, The Press
Chef Maxime Gauthier (our photo) and the owners estimated the losses related to the food that had to be thrown away at about $15,000.
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Photo by Martin Tremblay, The Press
While traveling from PressThe restaurant has yet to open its doors to customers due to lack of adequate preparation.
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Photo by Martin Tremblay, The Press
In principle, La Brasserie Bernard was due to reopen on Monday, but plans had to be revised. “We had to replenish the stocks,” we were told.
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Photo by Martin Tremblay, The Press
On Tuesday afternoon, Maxime Gauthier and his team were busy behind the stoves replenishing stocks to resume indoor services.
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In principle, La Brasserie Bernard was supposed to reopen on Monday, but Nathalie Cote and her chef, Maxime Gauthier, had to resign: they were not ready. Same scenario for Tuesday afternoon service. The fridges are empty. “We had to replenish the stocks. »
Mme Cote makes a claim with his insurance to reimburse him for a portion of his losses. However, she is not confident about her chances of getting compensation.
Further north, in the Villere district, Victor Afonso, co-owner of Tapio and Meson restaurants, also felt the discomfort of the breakup. “You always live in the hope that the electricity will come back,” he says. But the desire of the restaurant was unfortunately not granted. Thus, he estimates that between $5,000 and $10,000 worth of food has been thrown away.
For food, it is disastrous. We tried to save a little by feeding our employees.
Victor Afonso, co-owner of Tapio and Meson restaurants
And since he could not welcome customers to his establishments on Thursday and Friday evenings, Mr. Afonso estimates he lost about $50,000 in sales. According to him, insurance companies refuse to reimburse him because these losses are attributable to “natural causes”.
On the St-Hubert Group side, about thirty restaurants were forced to close, communications director Josie Vaillancourt confirmed. “We had to resort to generators and refrigerated trucks to avoid running out of food. While some franchisees had record sales, others closed and outsourced their groceries to their colleagues. »
At the Boisbriand plant, where patties, salads and ribs are made, the company posted losses of $175,000.
“This freezing rainstorm came at a very bad time,” noted Martin Vezina, vice-president of public and government affairs for the Association Restaurant Quebec (ARQ). It’s a weekend when people go to restaurants. At the moment, ARQ does not have data on the number of establishments affected by the disruption.
Back to normal at the grocery store
In addition, large supermarkets – some of which opened unexpectedly on Easter Sunday – were able to limit losses, especially thanks to generators, while smaller businesses were not so lucky.
Frank Henot, co-owner of Intermarche Boyer on Mont-Royal Avenue, suffered $100,000 in damages after his meat counter, fridges and freezers were emptied. “The store is full of food in anticipation of the long weekend,” he says.
His generator, however, allowed him to have lighting in the grocery store and handle his checkouts. So his business is open and customers can come and stock up on fruits, vegetables and dry ingredients like canned, pasta, cookies or flour.
Thus, many grocery stores were raided over the weekend.
Consumers who have an empty fridge should stock up. Results: Some aisles as well as fridges and refrigerators were quickly cleared, with empty shelves everywhere. For Michel Rochet, Quebec president of the Retail Council of Canada (RCCD), it’s an “extraordinary situation”.
“We were understaffed and had high traffic with people with high needs,” he recalls. According to him, the shelves will be replaced quickly. He assured that the situation will return to normal from this Wednesday.
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