Suzanna's, a local restaurant is not serving customers after the 20 of March as doors will be closed at the end of the month, while SkyeFire Bakery's final day was this Monday.
Both establishments are sadly joining the growing list of businesses that have or will close down since the beginning of this year, including Fitzsimmons Brewing Company, which is closing at the end of April.
SkyeFire Bakery's (located at 400, Main Street N #100) owner Scott Williams explains why the decision was made to close their doors.
"It was the last straw that broke the camel's back. It's been one thing after the other since day one for us. We went through the road closure, COVID. You name it, everything."
Williams went into a little more depth explaining their wholesale was not able to grow fast enough to keep the business afloat.
"Our retail shrunk too much too fast. Our wholesale wasn't able to grow fast enough to cover it." Williams continued on with what wholesale is. "Farmer's markets, which were very profitable for us, places like Italian stores and boutique type stores, we did a lot for restaurants and breweries, Flavours of Montreal was one of our bigger customers."
When asked what he will miss most, Williams talked about the small business community.
"There's a lot of support within the business community here, we all helped each other. So, it was kind of nice being part of that group of people."
Williams does not know yet what's next for him but he did mention he plans on sleeping in for the first time in four years.
For Suzanna's (located at 224a Main St N) it is a bit of a different story. The owner Lourese Nour was looking to sell her restaurant initially, so, she can scale back and retire as it was getting too hard for her to keep up with the flow and help advance her business while working 14 hours a day.
Another reason why she is deciding to close her doors for good was that the building she was in, was sold to a new landlord, so instead of selling, she thought it would be better to close the doors at the end of this month. Her final day of serving customers is next Monday.
After almost five years in business, Suzanna's was able to survive COVID as she described last year as being a good one.
"I cook from my heart for people as if it's my own family."
Nour mentioned she truly felt the support of Airdrie for the business's existence as 80 per cent of her customers were regulars.
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Fri, Apr 26, 4:30 PM
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