How Montreal Restaurant Owners — and Workers — Feel About the Return of Indoor Dining on January 31 | Eater Montreal

"Operating in Little Italy as a dessert and wine bar, Ratafia's co-owner Sandra Forcier laid out a detailed reopening to-do list on Instagram — 'devise a new menu,' 'test dishes,' 're-test them' — to show how much work is required to flip from takeout back to indoor dining, and she ultimately judged a Feb. 8 opening more realistic than the government's proposed Jan. 31. Forcier says she is glad to be reopening for her own livelihood and that of her staff but frustrated that the government still hasn't grasped the magnitude of these reversals for small, seasonally driven restaurants; Ratafia, which opened in July 2019, has been able to collect a few loans and subsidies (including a sizeable amount from Quebec’s PAUPME program) but hasn't received anything during the latest wave. Even at 50 percent capacity it can seat about 40, so she calls the half-capacity allowance 'better than nothing.'" - Valerie Silva