The economy has been through a pretty turbulent period over the past few years, and one of the sectors that’s experienced that the most has to be the restaurant industry. 

Pretty much all the big macro trends we’ve lived through show up here. Whether it’s the supply shocks of COVID, the inflation of the past 18 months, or disruptions in the labour market, restaurants have experienced all of these things in a really dramatic way. 

And through it all, they’ve had to go on opening their doors and serving customers every night if they wanted to stay in business. 

Today we talk to someone who has lived and worked through this firsthand to find out what it’s been like to be in the trenches running a restaurant during all of this, and what that can teach us about what’s going on in the economy more broadly.

Our guest Yannick Bigourdan is the owner and operator of some of the best restaurants in Toronto, including The Carbon Bar and Lucie, and was also behind two local institutions, Nota Bene and Splendido.

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