Team behind two popular Toronto restaurants closing them both due to rising costs
Two popular Toronto restaurants are closing permanently as their owners announce they're done with the rising costs in the city.
It's a tale that's becoming all too common in an industry already wracked with paper-thin margins: rent, ingredients and utilities all rise to such a fever pitch that, eventually, restaurant owners are left with no choice but to shutter their businesses.
It's not that anyone thinks running a restaurant would be easy, but, as Casey Ryan, owner of the now-shuttered Electric Bill bar, put it recently, it just gets to a point where operating "isn't viable." And, with the little-itty-bitty technical recession Canada finds itself in today, it only seems like more and more restaurateurs are making the hard decision to hang up their aprons.
The latest to do so is a real heartbreaker: Jeanne Chai and David Burga of Kiss My Pans and, more recently, Agak Agak, took to Instagram to announce that they'll soon be closing both restaurants permanently, the latter of which was only open for about a year.
The closure doesn't come from a lack of business, to be sure. Both Kiss My Pans and Agak Agak have earned their fair share of attention over the years, from celebrity visitors to winning awards from various publications and bodies in the city.
More important than the accolades, though, have been Kiss My Pans' and Agak Agak's roles in highlighting Singaporean cuisine on the Toronto food scene.
Still, with times more financially strenuous than ever before in Chai and Burga's time as Toronto restaurateurs, the two have ultimately chosen to say goodbye to it all.
"This is a bitter sweet moment but as business owners, we have to know when to pull the plug. We've been facing uncertainties for a while due to rising cost of goods. Our kopi has gone from $140 to $340 this month! Our rents have continued to climb," Chai and Burga write in the caption of the Instagram post announcing the impending closures.
That, on top of the fact that customers are dining out less, has led to a degree of uncertainty that they're simply not able to work under anymore.
"As a business, we can't run on uncertainty because bills still need to be paid and staff need to eat."
The good news? You've still got plenty of time to swing by for one last meal at both restaurants. Agak Agak's last day is slated for Sunday, Sept. 6, while Kiss My Pans will be closing on Sept. 7.
Fareen Karim at Agak Agak
