Left: SMITH Restaurant, The Roost, Peasant Cookery; right: The Alt Hotel & The Merchant Kitchen
RESTAURANT SOS:
HELPING OUR COMMUNITY SURVIVE By Lisa Muirhead and Jill Kwiatkowski, Sommelier (CAPS) The restaurant industry is renowned for being one of the toughest roads to success, even in the best of times. Winnipeg, in particular, is a very challenging market, simply because our food culture is a thriving blend of prestige cuisine and down-home comfort food. Winnipeg celebrates its elder statesmen—the restaurants that have been around forever—as well as the new familyrun and trending restaurants that pop up every year. We are blessed with an incredibly diverse population that has opened thousands of family-owned restaurants that bring a world of culinary tastes to our doorsteps. We have diners and drive-ins—and we have nationally-renowned chefs that are on the cutting edge of food and drink trendsetting. 38 Order online: JonesWines.com/shop
But our restaurants are in trouble. This is not news to anyone who has picked up a paper or had even a fleeting brush with social media. In November, the Manitoba Restaurant and Foodservices Association (MRFA) sent the results of an industry survey to the province to outline industry need. As of our press date, no provincial relief has been announced. Once restaurants are able to re-open, for those that survive, it will take many a year or more to recover from debt incurred during the shutdown. With input from our restaurant partners, this is intended as a guide to how to help support the recovery of Manitoba restaurants.
