‘Unbelievable has become acceptable’: Rising costs put pressure on Vancouver restaurant

It’s another thing you’ll probably have to pay more for these days — a dinner at a local restaurant.

As eateries and other businesses in the hospitality sector continue to recover from the pandemic, family-owned restaurants are, just like everyone else, having to deal with the rising cost of goods amid record inflation.

Mitsy Tsoukas, owner of Neighbour’s Restaurant in South Vancouver, says the price of many grocery items key to her business have surged in the last few months.

“I would just buy oil from the wholesale club because right now we’re sitting at $49.29 and everyone’s over $55 for the 16 litres. Even through COVID we were still at $19.99 until oil went up in October to more than double,” she explained to CityNews of some of the costs she’s facing now.

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Unfortunately, Tsoukas admits part of that will affect the customer.

“You get into like your oils, it’s what you use but it’s not your chicken, it’s not your potatoes, but you need it, you need it for everything, you use it and you use it all day long. Flour, cheese? When you say that your cheese bill almost tripled, and my prices have gone up a dollar on a pizza.”

‘It’s unheard of’

Tsoukas says while her business is trying to find savings where it can, the costs continue to pile up. She adds it’s never been this expensive to keep her doors open in the 40 years since her parents opened the restaurant.

“When I look back, you know, five years ago, you would be informed from your supplier or it would be something that in our industry was known — flour’s going up now or it’s a seasonal thing to be expected. Now, we’re no longer getting any kind of warning. The unbelievable has become acceptable. It’s no big deal to get an invoice, not be informed, and now flour — that was the day before yesterday — had gone up $7.25 a sack. It’s unheard of. We used to go up 50 cents and we used to lose it,” she told CityNews, adding prices can change within days.

The cost of goods and services has risen sharply, Statistics Canada reporting inflation figures showing a year-over-year increase of 6.8 per cent, largely blamed on food prices. 

The national inflation rate for March blew past expectations, jumping to its highest level since 1991.

The Consumer Price Index was already high before that — in February, the CPI was sitting at 5.7 per cent.

Restaurants already dealing with ‘tight margins’

While Tsoukas understands there are factors out of our control affecting supply chains and prices, she’s frustrated it’s gotten to this point.

“We try to buy as much locally as we can but everything is seasonal too, right?” she explained, adding she has good connections with local vendors, but they too are struggling with inflation.

Given the difficulties of the pandemic and all the restrictions that devastated her industry, Tsoukas says she’s just trying to get by.

The B.C. government has suggested some sort of action is coming to help locals deal with rising prices of gas and groceries, though no details have been provided. It’s unclear what kind of relief, if any, businesses will be offered amid these trying times.

“Restaurant businesses here are already dealing with really tight margins. We’re not a corporate place. Us, personally, small places like us did well when, for example, my parents 25 years ago, it was mom and dad in the kitchen, there’s four kids, my sister would serve, I would serve … and then we had six or seven staff. That’s no longer it,” she explained, noting costs at a restaurant aren’t isolated to just buying the food.

“I’ve never had to work this hard, and I know it sounds stupid, silly to say it … and I’ve never had to make so much wrong right just to get the day by.”

Tsoukas admits had she known five years ago that this is what her business would be dealing with now, she would have “put every last dollar and said no way.”