{"id":50189,"date":"2021-04-05T10:38:19","date_gmt":"2021-04-05T14:38:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/?p=50189"},"modified":"2021-04-05T10:41:30","modified_gmt":"2021-04-05T14:41:30","slug":"permanent-impacts-of-covid-19-on-the-chinese-restaurant-industry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/permanent-impacts-of-covid-19-on-the-chinese-restaurant-industry\/","title":{"rendered":"Permanent impacts of COVID-19 on the Chinese restaurant industry"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"photo

Text-based dim sum menu. Many restaurants that do not use cart service will have this type of menu. Photo courtesy of Charlie Lin.<\/p><\/div>\n

By Karen Young<\/p>\n

In 2020, the food service industry across Canada saw a <\/span>decline of 40% or more in revenue.<\/span><\/a> Restaurants across the country are adapting their services to the ever changing safety protocols as each province navigates re-openings and shutdowns. Such effects have a permanent impact on many restaurants that will outlast lockdown. CJRU sits down with current and former members of the restaurant industry to discuss these impacts.<\/span><\/p>\n

Charlie Lin is the owner of <\/span>Sky Dragon Chinese Restaurant<\/span><\/a> located in downtown Toronto. Before lockdown, it was a Chinese restaurant that still offered cart service for <\/span>dim sum.<\/span><\/a> Cart service is part of a traditional Cantonese style dim sum experience.\u00a0 Carts holding bamboo steamers with dim sum inside are pushed through the restaurant and customers can order directly from the cart.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cCart service can be traced back to Hong Kong, formerly China, where it first started. The traditional dim sum experience is like that<\/a>,\u201d explained Duck Cheong, who is a customer of Sky Dragon and retired restaurant owner and businessman.*\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

However, the indirect effects of COVID-19 have permanently affected cart service at Sky Dragon. Lin explains that cart service is more for those unfamiliar with dim sum, it is a way to sell dim sum directly to the customers. He believes that they will not do cart service in the future as customers may still be concerned about COVID-19 and the cleanliness of cart service.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cCanadian people like the cart service. They can directly see the food. Chinese people, especially the old age Chinese people, it doesn\u2019t matter if you have the cart or not,\u201d he says.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Photo

Sky Dragon started adapting their take out menus that have photos of dim sum. Photo courtesy of Charlie Lin.<\/p><\/div>\n

Cart service has seen a decline in other parts of Ontario even before COVID-19.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIn restaurants in Markham, Scarborough, Richmond Hill typically have menus on the table instead of the traditional cart service<\/a>. Once you order your food it gets cooked. One it\u2019s for safety and second your food is more fresh and hot<\/a>,\u201d says\u00a0 Tony Dong, who is currently the Assistant Manager at <\/span>\u00a0New Century Restaurant <\/span><\/a>\u00a0in Markham, formerly working at Sky Dragon.<\/span><\/p>\n

New Century Restaurant reopened after some renovations last fall. Shortly after re-opening, <\/span>indoor dining was banned<\/span><\/a> and the restaurant closed again. Dong shares the difficulties of maintaining a restaurant of its size. Typically this Chinese restaurant could house a few hundred customers.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThere are huge effects of COVID-19 on the restaurant industry, even more so with large restaurants.<\/a> The restrictions make it very hard to maintain a restaurant of this size, with rent and the number of employees we have to operate the restaurant<\/a>,\u201d says Dong*.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Cheong shares how the dine in experience is irreplaceable.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAtmosphere is important when eating out, like being able to sit down and talk with your friends. When you order take out, the food isn\u2019t the same. You might as well cook fresh food at home<\/a>\u201d he says.*<\/span><\/p>\n

To support these restaurants, find them on your local food delivery app. This is the final story is a four-part series on the effects of global pandemic on the Asian community in Canada.<\/span><\/p>\n

*This quote was paraphrased and translated from Cantonese. To hear the full quote in Cantonese, click on the embedded text.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Karen Young In 2020, the food service industry across Canada saw a decline of 40% or more in revenue. Restaurants across the country are adapting their services to the ever changing safety protocols as each province navigates re-openings and shutdowns. Such effects have a permanent impact on many restaurants that will outlast lockdown. CJRU…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":90,"featured_media":50195,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[217,218,219],"tags":[2038,284],"radio":[1380],"origine":[267,269,273],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50189"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/90"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50189"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50189\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/50195"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50189"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50189"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50189"},{"taxonomy":"radio","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/radio?post=50189"},{"taxonomy":"origine","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/origine?post=50189"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}