MONTREAL — As Montreal restaurants adapt to rising costs and impending deadlines to repay loans issued during the pandemic, one well-known chef says she worries about the future of the city’s famed dining scene.
Solomon, who opened her first restaurant, Olive et Gourmando, in Old Montreal 25 years ago, said she's never seen anything like the price increases of the past few years, which have pushed the cost of "literally everything" up between 20 per cent and 30 per cent. "Restaurants are struggling, businesses are struggling, but we know our customers are struggling too, so it is a really difficult thing to navigate.
Despite the economic headwinds, new restaurants are still opening in Montreal. Andrew Whibley and Pablo Rojas, who recently opened Bar Dominion in downtown Montreal, say their new establishment was shaped by the economic climate. Rojas said he’d like to see the federal government forgive the loans and look at them as a one-time cost necessary to keep businesses afloat and protect jobs.
But he thinks dining out is too deeply ingrained in Montreal’s culture for people to abandon restaurants altogether.