Regina small businesses still impacted by pandemic

Small businesses in the city are still dealing with the fall out of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Chris Plumb, owner of Mercury Cafe and Grill, said the pandemic has been tough on business, with the diner generating enough money to keep the employees paid.

“The first year was fine, and then the second time around it wasn’t quite as good and now we’re in the third time around and it’s awful,” said Plumb.

Feeling like he had no where else to turn, Plumb made a plea to the community on social media.

“That’s who has supported us 12 years in business now almost, so I’ve got to turn to them and hope they come out and I mean people have been supportive,” said Plumb.

The diner has already seen an impact from the post, with a little bit of a lunch rush on Wednesday afternoon, which gives him hope the local diner can survive.

Plumb said local support is what’s needed right now, the Green Spot Cafe is relying on customer support right now as well.

“It’s been pretty tough, as you know, for all businesses, but we try our best to keep going and we’ve got really good customers and they support us,” said Sunshine Cheang, owner of the Green Spot Cafe.

The Green Spot, located in Agriculture Place, is celebrating 15 years if business in the Queen City, Cheang is looking forward to things starting to get back to normal.

“The tower people are coming back and they’re all excited to be here and they’re all really happy to see us and support us,” said Cheang.

Plumb dreams of the day when the pandemic is over and people flood to restaurants and bars, reminiscent of the end of the Spanish Flu pandemic, but for now, said everyone needs to support small businesses during these hard times.

“Whether it’s here or at another cafe or another restaurant or another store or anything, stay local as much as you can right now, it’s really important,” said Plumb.

Janis Procyk, owner of Brick and Mortar, said there was a big push for shopping local last fall, but added sales were down this Christmas season.

She said moving to a better location has helped them stay afloat, but they are also working on building a customer loyalty base.

“I think we’ll be okay and we’ll figure it out,” said Procyk, “It’s kind of a perpetual wheel of nothing is ordinary and you’re just constantly straining your brain and trying to do absolutely anything to keep the doors open.”

Opening the shop in the fall of 2019, it has been a hard few years for Brick and Mortar and for all small businesses.

Procyk said there is a common mentality of people being stressed out and fed up with the pandemic.

“It would be nice if people could kind of have some compassion, or show a little bit more forgiveness for their small businesses and just lean on them and help them out more than they necessarily generally would."