The month of October was a good one for the food and beverage business here and across the country.
Sales at restaurants, bars and fast-food outlets rose in seven provinces in that month. In fact, they rose more sharply in Saskatchewan than anywhere with a gain of nearly three percent. And this jump marked the fourth consecutive increase in total revenues at these outlets.
Restaurants had the strongest improvement while revenues in bars and taverns actually fell and are tracking behind where they were a year ago, even with rising prices adding to the top line.
This industry has been struggling ever since the pandemic, meaning it is not unusual to see a restaurant, especially smaller, locally-owned ones, posted as going out of business sign in the window.
Some of these increases are no doubt the result of higher prices rather than increased patronage or volume. You can see a bit of that when you remove seasonal adjustment and look at raw data which show liquor sales rising 2.5-percent nationally over a year earlier.
