Restaurants in Nova Scotia are doing well.
In 2016 restaurants across the province raked in $1.9 billion.
VP of the Atlantic Restaurants Canada Luc Erjavec says a lot of the growth is tourism related.
He says 19 cents of every tourism dollar in the province is spent at a restaurant.
“The economy was stable, tourism was gang-busters with the lower dollar and bad weather in Ontario really helped us as well [because] we got a lot of tourists from Ontario and Quebec,” he says.
“It was a fantastic year, there’s no other way to put it.”
Erjavec says fresh seafood, farm products and craft beer options have helped boost the tourism sector.
He says the province is attractive to tourists.
But the winter months aren’t as kind to restaurants around the province.
Erjavec says they see a slight increase over the holidays when people are running around town shopping and stop in for something to eat.
But he says overall, they barely hang on.
“Come January what happens is we’re based on disposable income, there’s no tourists, it’s rotten weather and everyone is paying off their credit card bills.”
Erjavec says tourism in summer months helps alleviate the winter decline.
He says they expect to see even better numbers for the restaurant industry when the 2017 totals are released.