Gray skies, weather alerts, vigils for violent storms… good weather is rare and hurts restaurateurs who have a terrace.
The outside tables are nowhere near as successful as the nice weather years.
It’s those uncertain times that don’t make you want to sit outside.
At Le Chack restaurant, on the waterfront, the terrace is the main attraction and income weeks are limited to the summer period.
With the number of rainy days, venue owner Simon Piché estimates they have had to close more often this summer than the past six seasons, enough to generate nearly 40% losses.
Lost income for the employer, but also uncertain for the tip employees. Going from a hundred seats on the balcony to a few more indoors, it’s reflected in the pay.
“Someone is scheduled for a 40-45 hour week, but there, with three days of rain, we end up at 10 or 11pm…. A week in the summer is fine, but when three or four weeks go by they’re lost hours,” explained Mr. Peachey.
Monitoring weather radars has become an obsession for managers.
said Amélie Gariépy, Coordinator of the Communications and Marketing Department at Le Temps d’une Pinte.
At Café Frida, the 56 seats overlooking the river were often empty very early in the evening.
I get the impression that people are generally reluctant to go out due to the lack of weather. I feel like people who’ve been to festivals or whatever, maybe they’d prefer that [manger] At home not to take risks and also to save money because everything is getting really expensive,” said Café Frida owner, Gabrielle Cossette.
I’m still lucky that this year the bleachers were expanded downtown.
Those few extra places that are occupied when the weather is nice can bring a little balm on the losses generated.
“We notice among restaurateurs the economic weight that it can bring, which is a clear positive for them, which helps especially in the period we are currently in,” explained the general manager of the Société de Développement Commercial du centre-ville de Trois-Rivières. Jenna Dazel.
Discussions are still underway about whether this permission will be repeated next year.
