A survey from Restaurants Canada says 70 per cent of food service businesses in this province are either very or extremely worried that they won’t have enough liquidity to pay vendors, rent, and other expenses over the next three months. The survey shows that most food service businesses in Saskatchewan might not have enough cash flow to successfully reopen their doors to diners.

At least one in five independent restaurant operator are dealing with a landlord who isn’t willing to provide rent relief either through the federal rent assistance program or some other way. 14 per cent of independent restaurants haven’t been able to pay rent for April and nearly 20 per cent aren’t able to pay rent for May.

Restaurants Canada says, before the start of the pandemic, Saskatchewan’s $2.4 billion food service industry represented three per cent of GDP and was the third largest private sector employer in the province. It says, if conditions don’t improve, sale could drop by a much as $450 million for the second quarter and the industry might not be able to recover the 25,000 jobs lost due to COVID-19.