Restaurants in Toronto left with no choice but to raise prices amid skyrocketing inflation

Several popular Toronto restaurants have been left with no choice but to raise their prices as inflation continues to swell.

The non-stop rise of food costs is a reality that people across Canada have grown accustomed to over the past few years. That's not to say we're happy about it, but it's just the way it is — kind of like accepting the fact that the Leafs will, inevitably, let us down each hockey season.

Still, many restaurants across the city, particularly independents, have tried their best to keep costs for their diners low, understanding that we're all feeling the pinch these days, and believing that skyrocketing supply costs shouldn't get in the way of your ability to eat great food.

A noble quest, indeed. Alas, inflation is getting to a point where even the restaurants most committed to maintaining reasonably accessible prices are finally being forced to give them a boost.

For Tokyo Hot Fried Chicken owner Jordan Harasinski Gillis, keeping his fried chicken both high-quality and affordable has been a core value of the restaurant ever since it opened.

"We know how tough it is out there," Haraskinki Gillis tells blogTO. 

"When we opened our business, our core values were to make sure our food was accessible to everyone. Being from Parkdale, we've seen food insecurity around us our whole lives. We wanted to provide awesome high-quality fried chicken at prices that wouldn't make anyone bat an eye or feel out of reach."

Still, things reached a fever pitch for his team in 2025. The price of ingredients alone, Haraskinki Gillis tells blogTO, has gone up by nearly 50 per cent in the past two years. Before that, in 2022 alone, his costs saw a nearly 100 per cent surge.

"Imagine one day you wake up and everything costs [twice] as much to keep the doors open," he explains. That's kind of what we are navigating now, while trying to be mindful of the economy and the way our community is feeling the squeeze of it all."

He tells blogTO that, eventually, he had to have a frank conversation with himself and realize that holding his prices steady any longer would eventually leave him with no other choice but to shut the business down altogether, a reality he says was simply "not an option."

So, despite the enormous inflation of his own overhead, he instituted a relatively modest 10 per cent price increase on his highest-cost menu items. However minimal, the increase, Haraskinki Gillis tells blogTO, has created something of a "safety net" for he and his employees.

"It gets to a point where you're working seven days a week, putting your all into it, and honestly, a price increase can give us that safety net of being able to stop the grind at least one day a week, recover ourselves mentally and provide the highest quality food our customers expect while still making sure we, as owners, aren't struggling," he explains.

Tokyo Hot Fried Chicken isn't alone. Both Scarborough institution Mark's Pizza and Little Italy's beloved BEAR Steak Sandwiches have, similarly, increased their prices lately.

"The final straw was the price of a case of pepperoni, which went from $216 to $264," Mark's Pizza owner Mark Alousis tells blogTO. "Everything else has been inching up and up over the past few years."

As for BEAR Steak, the price of beef alone has gone up by nearly 50 per cent in the two years since the sandwich shop opened.

In that time, owners Ricardo Barrientos and Aki Erenberg have maintained the same prices, but, as costs only continue to rise, keeping prices stagnant is, simply, no longer possible if the sandwich shop hopes to maintain its quality.

BEAR Steak Sandwiches owners Ricardo Barrientos and Aki Erenberg kept prices stable for two years.

"Obviously, AAA beef won't ever be considered 'affordable' in comparison to other proteins like chicken or pork, but compared to what's available at dine-in ventures we wanted to create a quick service concept that brought high-quality steak to the masses" Barrientos and Erenberg tell blogTO.

To do that (while growing the business at the same time), they increased the price of their classic steak sandwich from $18 to $20, another increase of 10 per cent.

At Mark's Pizza, Alousis, similarly, opted to boost his prices by 10 per cent, after only raising prices by about $1 per slice in five years.

Alousis tells blogTO that, upon raising his prices, he "wasn't sure how customers would react," but that the increase was a necessary evil, so to speak.

"With the cost of goods as well as the cost of labour, I had no choice if I want to stay in business," Alousis explains.

"We used to have a bit of profit in the past, but this year was different. Basically break even."

"I had no choice if I want to stay in business," says Mark's Pizza owner Mark Alousis.

As Toronto residents continue to struggle with the tightening vice of the cost of living, increasing consumer prices is never going to be a popular move, but for independent businesses, it's proving an unavoidable one.

It's not just the little guys who are feeling the pinch. Just this week, Tim Hortons implemented its first price increase on coffee in three years, amid skyrocketing coffee prices worldwide.

Will food prices ever go back down? That's like asking whether the Leafs will ever win the Stanley Cup. We'll just have to wait and see, but a little optimism can't hurt.