CHEF PAUL'S KITCHEN: Restaurant biz in precarious position - most popular side dishes in restaurants

At the beginning of the year, we often took out the list.
Tomato food and drinks require everyone to submit a list of the top 100 items they eat in the city.
Now, camera crews are moving from one restaurant to another, filming this year's top new location and best restaurants for Avenue magazine's annual food magazine, which will hit the newsstand.
A list that the public and media don't pay attention to is that more and more restaurants are closed.
Although we haven't even turned to the second month of the year, we have seen some famous restaurants choose to close.
The Manor cafe is on sale in the long run but will continue to operate for a while.
Summer-to-season cuisine, home of the chef Trittenbach in January, in my opinion one of the most admired talents in our city will be closed by the end of February as they consider options for the future.
Character cuisine has served their last dish, leaving the way for the beer bar to take over the space.
These are just some restaurants that opt out.
Yes, a lot of these places, if not most, will be filled up again, some of which may even be a list of the best restaurants for next year, but it's time to pay attention.
Why because these places are run by excellent operators, they have a strong reputation and a keen sense of how to manage restaurants successfully.
There are not all new restaurants nearby.
Many people enter the industry without any work leads, and after a few months their savings are gone, they sell pennies for a dollar.
But it's different this time.
Smart people are taking what they can get and going to the exit, which is getting more and more.
Why let me draw that picture for you?
The first problem for local restaurant owners is the economic downturn.
There is no doubt that when talking to industry peers, Edmonton is not buzzing like it used to be.
All we need to do is look under the QEII Highway for three hours.
For our neighbors in Calgary, look at how the economic slowdown has caused discretionary spending to dry up overnight. The first thing is to have a good night.
Each restaurant has a minimum sales threshold to manage their high overhead costs.
When sales fall, it pays, and it's only a matter of time before those already narrow margins turn into deficits.
Most restaurants do not have enough financial responsibility to sustain even months of losses without closing.
Coupled with the economic downturn, more and more independent restaurants are opening continuously, creating more competition and getting less and less money from customers.
From 2015 to 2017, a large number of new restaurants opened, especially in the city center, and all the restaurants were fighting for their pies.
Although the new opening slowed slightly last year, there are still more new dining options to join the market than I think.
These factors have an impact on the top
Line sales, but our industry has seen some serious and difficult cost increases that have really had an impact.
Without getting things too political, no one can say that raising the minimum wage by 45% in three years has had an impact on our industry, in any case, on paper, it consists mainly of workers who earn a minimum wage or a little more.
I can say that three years ago, when we opened, we ran similar, even slightly lower sales at about 28% of the labor cost.
Today, I hope that at about 33% cm of the big ones, set at 35%, the average monthly, though still 60-
I have 70 hours left in my business.
Plus changes in holiday pay, forcing most restaurants to pay $3000 now-
£ 5000 per statutory holiday, all holidays closed and no sales to offset costs.
The increase in these costs includes a carbon tax, an increase in alcohol taxes, property taxes, commodity costs, fuel surcharges, and so on, each of which accounts for a fraction of them, leaving almost nothing behind.
It's more fun than that.
We are not even used to dinner today.
Although even ten years ago it was normal to go out and splurge a big meal, order multiple classes, drink too much, prepare a few side dishes for the table, and make sure to set aside space for the dessert, this is not the case for the vast majority of diners today.
Guests today usually choose one dish or share some of the smaller ones.
If they have anything, they avoid a bottle of wine and choose a drink or cocktail.
Then there were a couple of nights when they didn't want to leave their house at all and chose to go out and live, but it wasn't what they used to do.
A few years ago, the food delivered to your doorstep was almost monopolized by pizza chains and Chinese restaurants, creating a fairly profitable market for them.
Then skip the on-site dishes and offer consumers seemingly endless options at a modest cost, delivered to their doorstep, with little need to interact with people and even wear pants for that.
While this is very convenient and easy for consumers, many of you don't think these delivery services are from 20-
30% of sales are only for the convenience of orders.
While the temptation to sell extra is tempting for restaurant owners and hard to give up, it usually gives their team more work in exchange for lower profits.
What's worse, when the food is cold to the door, you may have a terrible first impression of your concept.
It is said that in the past few years, great changes have taken place in our industry, which will be understated.
We are experiencing market changes at a pace that I have never seen in my career.
Yes, the competition is good.
It makes us better.
Yes, we have to adapt or die, just like any business that runs in a capitalist economy.
But it feels different.
Ordinary restaurants can't turn things around now with new paint or the sign of "New Management" hanging.
Tougher measures are needed.
We must seriously study how we do business and find ways to change patterns.
While I really wish I was wrong, I feel that 2019 will lead to more closure in our restaurant community before we see things improve.
While on the surface some of our favorite places seem to have been packed with people all the time and thus do a good job, more often than not, they are not just passing.
The best of us also know your pain.
We check our bill, check our monthly statement, check our menu
Tooth comb, do your best to keep our price and find a way to keep the door open as we know you feel the pressure as a consumer too.
There are things that have to be paid, though, because you can only pay so much, and we can only afford to lose so long before we have to say enough money.