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Data shows how lockdowns devastated restaurants in Canada

covid-19 restaurant disaster

TORONTO, May 5, 2022 /PRNewswire/ — The impact of the pandemic has hit the Canadian Restaurant industry hard and with the Restaurants Canada Trade Show in town May 9th to the 11th, new data identifies exactly how many restaurant businesses have been shuttered in Canada in the past 12 months.

According to the latest findings from Unified Data Lab’s STORE CONNECT report, a monthly census of newly opened restaurants and closed restaurants, during the past 12 months in Canada a record number of 3,344 restaurants went out of business.

The U.S. restaurant industry did not fare much better with a record 29,322 restaurants going out of business in the past 12 months.

“As we emerge from the 2 years of the pandemic, we are now starting to fully understand the true impact lockdowns and stay-at-home mandates have had on the Canadian restaurant industry. Unfortunately, many of the restaurant closures are mom and pop independent restaurants but chains such as Subway and Starbucks also closed a record number of locations in Canada,” said Kyle Brown, Co-Founder of Unified Data Labs.

According to Unified Data Labs, the cities with the most restaurant closures include Toronto, Montreal, Scarborough, Mississauga, Ottawa, Winnipeg, Calgary, Edmonton, and Vancouver.

The restaurant industry in Canada has been forever altered by the effects of the pandemic, according to Industry Expert, Robert Carter of The StratonHunter Group:

“It’s unfortunate that so many restaurants have gone out of business. In Canada, we have always had a robust and vibrant industry, representing over $90 billion in annual sales. But there is little doubt that the landscape has changed forever, especially amongst the most entrepreneurial of restaurateurs, the independent operators, who were hit especially hard.”

About Unified Data –
Unified Data powers ingenuity, innovation and insights through tracking restaurant customers’ path to purchase from where it all begins: online. We uncover fresh insights on consumer behaviour in the $900 billion North American Foodservice industry, right from the moment it begins.

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