Restaurants brace for a busy Thanksgiving weekend
Restaurants will be main meeting place for families looking to gather for the holiday
Usually, Thanksgiving weekends are a slow time for restaurants. Many shut down on the holiday completely, giving staff a much-needed break.
But, this year, if families want to gather outside their single household bubbles, restaurants will be the only place they'll be permitted to go because of the new COVID-19 'circuit breaker' restrictions announced yesterday.
According to the provincial government, a single household includes individuals living together and can be extended to include: caregivers for any of those people; any parent, child, sibling, grandparent or grandchild of those people who requires support; and any one additional person who lives alone at another address who requires support.
Tabatha Smith, owner, manager and team leader at Isaac's Way, a family–style restaurant based in Fredericton, says she has already seen an increase in inquiries and reservations for Thanksgiving.
"With this move, we expect to be busier," said Smith. "[But] there's a sadness in knowing that some families aren't going to get together at home."
Despite the rapid change in holiday plans, Smith says the swift measures were necessary.
"I think that all of us expected some sort of safety measures [to be] put in place," said Smith, who says the restaurant has been operating with rapid testing since August. "Having watched the cases rise and the deaths that we've suffered in the last week… we're very happy to see some more safety measures move through."
Sol Lee is a manager for the ALTO Restaurant and Sushi in Riverview, a local restaurant which serves Korean, Japanese, Canadian, Greek, Italian and German cuisine. But the business won't be taking advantage of any increase in business on the holiday Monday.
The restaurant has always been closed to customers on Mondays, as that's the main day their staff gets to rest.
"We are very short-staffed. All of our staff work like six days straight," said Lee, who says they're happy to get the holiday off.
Lee is concerned about the effect of an increase in cases and restrictions on businesses going forward.
"It's hard to say because the rate of COVID is going up, it's very unstable for businesses and everything. We are thinking to [make] our restaurant only take-out, not dining, but we are not sure yet. It depends on how the COVID situation changes."
WATCH | Fredericton families planning scaled down Thanksgiving
Louise-Philippe Gauthier is the director of provincial affairs, New Brunswick and PEI, for the Canadian Federation of Independent Business. He says with the holiday season approaching, and the uncertainty surrounding COVID-19 remaining high, businesses should try to take advantage of this uptick in revenue while they can.
"Even with the nice summer that we've had, every little bit of revenue is important for businesses that remained affected by the pandemic and changes in consumer spending," said Gauthier. "So hopefully, operators will be able to take as much an advantage of this opportunity as possible."