SAME SAME
A new report out today:
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BNN BLOOMBERG ARTICLE: Canadians dine out less, look for value: report
Here's why my friends and I go out a lot less than we did before the lockdowns.
1. Overall Increase Since 2020
Menu prices for food away from home rose by 8.8% at their peak in March 2023, the fastest pace in over two decades.
As of 2025, prices continue to rise steadily—about 0.3% per month, with a year-over-year increase of 3.9%.
In Canada, food prices overall have surged more than 27% since 2020
2. Many Good Restaurants Closed
- By late 2020, over 140 bars and restaurants had already shut down due to financial strain and lack of rent relief.
- In 2025 alone, at least 9 more notable restaurants and bars have permanently closed, including Pink Sky and Greta Solomon’s
3. Food Quality has gone down
- During Tiff, my friends and I used to go to the Elephant and Castle on King St. West. We used to get amazing Sheppard's Pie, Mac and Cheese, Burgers, fries, and other stuff. The Sheppard's pie tasted homemade, and it was a substantial portion, and you could get a slice of cheddar on top. That was one of my favourite dishes. Since the pandemic, the menu and food quality have changed. The Sheppard's Pie is half the size, has more sodium, and less flavour, while costing more.
- This year, they gave TIFF Volunteers a discount. I went with one of my friends 1 time, as we aren't as able to go as a group as we used to. I ordered the Chicken sliders. They were very underwhelming. We did get a discount, but I wouldn't say I loved it. If it were on the old menu, I am sure it would have been a lot better. In order to keep up with rising restaurant costs, they are having to lower food quality to make their payroll and rent. I totally understand, but I don't want to waste my money on underwhelming food.
4. Service has gone down
- While there are still restaurants with excellent service, most of the time, they are really high-end restaurants that can afford to provide better service because they charge more.
- In general, I find there is a big veil of apathy over the city and its servers. They don't enjoy their jobs, and they don't get paid enough to sustain a good life anymore. You would give up caring if you were treated the way they are by some customers, but at the same time, sometimes they are just exhausted and don't care anymore.
5. The same old everywhere
- In my area, there are so many Korean restaurants and Sushi restaurants. They can't all be great, so there are a lot of pretty much the same thing in the same area, but most of them aren't very good.
6. Food isn't freshly made.
- A lot of restaurants purchase frozen, pre-prepared food to cut down on labour costs. A big bag of frozen French fries will never taste as good as freshly cut twice-fried at the correct temperature.
7. Lack of creativity and variety
- Where I live and work, you can almost cut and paste the same kind of food to both areas. I live uptown but work downtown. But it's the same kind of stuff. Korean restaurant, Sushi restaurant, Pizza, Shawarma, lots of things with rice. So many similar Asian food places. Toronto is craving something new, so when a new restaurant called Nakwon Kisa opened in North York there were so many people that they had to reduce the number of seatings allowed in the restaurant. There were lineups outside. I think it's because their concept was different than what is in the area. I haven't been yet, so I can't comment on the food, just the desire to find something different and new, reasonably priced and delicious.
8. Getting to the Restaurants
- I don't think people realize how difficult it is to get to some restaurants around Toronto these days. My friend picked a restaurant on King St. E. for her birthday, and we had to maneuver around streetcar track construction and traffic to get there, and then found that their air conditioning wasn't working.
- My friend had to drive down the DVP during rush hour to get there. If you know, you know. Another friend had to take the GO from Ajax. None of us live or work near there, so we had to factor in getting delayed getting there.
9. Lack of staff
- I heard restaurant entrepreneur Trevor Lui say that when he does interviews for his restaurants, people just ghost him. They ghost the interview or don't show up for the job. How can you run a restaurant like that?
10. It's just not worth the time and effort anymore.
- I used to go out to food events or restaurants a couple of days a week. Now I hesitate, and it has to be something I want to try, a birthday, or it's free or easy to go to.
- I used to get invited to tastings; it was a nice way to try restaurants you might not know about or go to.
- Now, if I am downtown at my office, I just want to go home as fast as I can after work to get out of the downtown area and avoid the crowded subway ride home. Also, trying to get to specific restaurants at 6-6:30 is becoming extremely difficult. Subway delays, traffic, and construction.
During TIFF I went to the Ritz Carlton to the Epoch bar by myself because my friends were still on shifts. I was starving and wanted real food. I ordered some Tuna Nachos, which were delicious, and also had a non alcoholic beverage, and spent $50. I enjoyed it and it hit the spot, but I can't afford to pay that for nachos and a drink all the time. I was sick of having hot dogs and croissants because they were fast, cheap, and portable.
Shrinkflation is real!
The week before TIFF, I went to SAME SAME across from the lightbox. The restaurant was empty, but there were people on the patio, and they had a Happy Hour. They had amazing oysters for $3 each. I got 4 and shrimp toast. Not cheap but reasonable and amazing.
I went back during TIFF while on a break with my friend. I ordered 3 oysters. They took the Happy Hour away during the festival, so the same oysters were $4 each, which is their regular price. This was my dinner break so I needed more food. I ordered a pomello shrimp thing that was pretty small, and I was still hungry, so I got 2 beef bao buns. The buns and the pomello shrimp were excellent, but when you added it all up, it was over $60, and they were appetizers.
Now these are thoughts on single dining, so when you add a family trying to go out to a restaurant with or without kids, you can add even more inconvenience to the mix and a lot more $$$$.
So as you can see, it's not just ONE thing that has changed in this city to make the dollars go down, but the solution of making Public Service Workers go back to the office isn't going to solve it unless the TTC breaks down and they are forced to go to a restaurant because they can't get home.
Sending people back to the office 5 days a week will reduce their take-home pay, thus reducing their disposable income to be able to afford to go to restaurants.
I don't make minimum wage, but going back to the office and having to change my actual job to a lower level will leave me no extra disposable income, so I will be eating cheap takeout more and making my own food.
I was going to go to a restaurant before going home but it was my coworker's idea, and he didn't stay to go, so we cancelled going and left it for another day. Personally, I was happy to go home and eat my leftovers from the marathon Sunday cook I did yesterday.
Giving me time to write these thoughts about the change in Restaurant dining in Toronto.
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