‘Better times are coming’: Saskatoon restaurants look for optimism in 2025

Michelle Berg/Saskatoon StarPhoenix Hasib Karimi makes authentic beef Birria tacos at Chachos Tacos.

Brody Langager

Saskatoon StarPhoenix

January is typically a slow month for restaurants, but local stakeholders say they’re holding on to optimism despite struggling in 2024.

The owner of Chachos Tacos, which opened last year, said he hopes to build and grow the budding business.

“There’s four of us (staff) altogether. This month we’re supposed to absolutely see a decrease in customers, so because of that I usually take a pay cut,” said Hasib Karimi.

There’s not much wiggle room with the new business, so during slower months he needs to make that sacrifice to keep the few staff he has, he said.

Business was steady during the holiday season, but as a smaller business it doesn’t get as busy as other restaurants, he added

Before Chachos Tacos opened at 123 Avenue B South on May 5, 2024, Karimi sold tacos out of his home for a couple of months.

“I learned the recipe about seven years ago in Mexico at a street food vendor and I’ve been cooking it for about five or six years … people started recognizing that they liked my tacos,” he said.

The business he’s been getting hasn’t met his expectations, but that doesn’t have anything to do with the customer base, he added.

“We have a limited amount of quantities for our food because we make everything fresh in house every day. So when we do a certain amount of tacos because we have a certain amount of meat that we can get that’s fresh … we’re only able to do 500 to 700 tacos.”

Once they sell out, the doors are closed — sometimes within two hours, he said.

“Compared to the other restaurants, they do twice as much as us.”

Hospitality Saskatchewan president Jim Bence said stagnation during January comes off the holiday season and New Year’s festivities, so many businesses hope they got a good boost during that busy time.

“January is always the month in which things really slow down — people are paying off their Visa bills from Christmas. But this year the anticipation is that it’s going to be really tough,” Bence said.

The new year brings a lot of uncertainty, and all of the costs for businesses have increased, he noted.

“That’s everything from a jug of cooking oil to insurance to wages. All of those things have gone up.”

Everyone is belt-tightening and looking at options like reducing the number of menu items they offer, Bence said.

That uncertainty is compounded by things like the U.S. tariff threat, which would further raise the cost of goods, he added.

“Whether it happens or not, that’s still a part of people’s anxiety levels.”

Bence said he worries more businesses will close after reviewing their expenses and profit margins from 2024.

While there’s not much to be optimistic about, that’s exactly what people need to have going into the new year, he said.

“It’s so easy to get stuck in the ‘woe is me’ or doom and gloom aspect of our business and of our lives, but there are better times coming. I’m going to remain positive in that respect.”

Now is a good time for people to support their favourite spots, he said.

“Get your wallet out, stay local and go to your restaurants … if we want our favourite restaurants to be around in 2025, then we’ve got to make sure that we’re going.”

Mark von Schellwitz, vice president of Western Canada for Restaurants Canada, said a lot of restaurants would like to forget about 2024.

“We had a record number of bankruptcies in 2024, not including a lot of closures that happened when leases are coming due,” he said.

Many restaurant owners had to walk away from their businesses because renewed lease rates were unsustainably high, von Schellwitz said.

About 53 per cent of Restaurants Canada’s members report that they are not making money due to increased costs, compared to 12 per cent before the pandemic, he added.

As interest rates start to drop, affordability will become less of an issue, he said.

“It’s all about consumer confidence, and I think with where things are going, hopefully that consumer confidence will return, which will obviously benefit our industry.”

-Advertisement-