Relish owner says downtown construction taking bite out of burger business
Roger Andrews says burger restaurant seeing 50 per cent drop in sales due to convention centre work
The owner of a burger shop in downtown St. John's says construction on the city's new convention centre is hurting his bottom line.
Roger Andrews owns Relish Gourmet Burgers on Waldegrave Street, right across from the ongoing construction.
Andrews told CBC News that each time Waldegrave Street is closed for construction, his restaurant Relish sees business cut in half.
"Our restaurant is solely based on foot traffic, pretty much, versus a reservation sort of thing," he said.
"So on a regular day, if you're going to do around $1,500 in sales, we'd be down around $650 to $700 range."
While the construction on the St. John's Convention Centre is expected to be completed soon, the store owner said the ongoing work combined with the tax increases in the 2016 city budget, he thinks he'll be under a bigger pinch than ever before.
He said the business interruption insurance he purchased doesn't cover construction, and only covers unforeseen events such as flooding.
'What do you do?'
With no compensation from the City of St. John's, Andrews said he's left to absorb the loss himself, something that may call into question his decision to keep going — especially with the city's planned Water Street dig on the horizon.
"The insurance doesn't cover it, the city won't compensate you, so what do you do?" he said. "I guess you just suck it up and move forward with 40 to 50 days of lost sales."
When his lease runs out in 2017, Andrews plans to reconsider whether or not to stay in downtown St. John's or move his business elsewhere.
"It's definitely not doing anything for enticing people to come to the downtown St. John's area to set up businesses," he said.
"If I had my time back I probably would have set up in Paradise. There's a lot of young families there, not a whole lot of restaurants, and it probably would have been a better option."
With files from Andrew Sampson