Supporting Locally-Owned Niagara Falls Restaurants

Supporting Locally-Owned Niagara Falls Restaurants

Media has given endangered species more and more coverage each year. However, no one seems to remember inanimate endangered species. One that seems to be disappearing right before our eyes is the local restaurant. Every time I visit a new town or city I marvel at the amount of restaurants that are also in every other city. In fact, when I come across a new restaurant I just to stop and have a bite to eat. This trend is no different in Niagara Falls, Canada where locally owned restaurants seem to disappear more each day (with at least two microwave-wielding chain restaurants taking its place). Believe it or not, by eating at a locally owned Niagara Falls restaurant, you’re probably helping your area in more ways than you could imagine.

First off is the obvious; by eating at a local restaurant you are supporting local business. Think of it like going to the modest grocery on the corner instead of giving in and going to Wal-Mart. Not only are you supporting the business you visit, but also all of the businesses it’s associated with. For a restaurant, this includes local farmers, advertising agencies, etc. The more you support local business the more likely your local economy is to thrive.

Also, when eating locally, you are actually lessening environmental impact. Locally-owned Niagara Falls restaurants often buy locally, meaning food isn’t shipped cross-country or over any oceans (who wants food that hasn’t been fresh for a week anyway?). Local farms typically use much more safe and organic growing practices when compared to larger companies, keeping farmland useful for a longer time and not polluting local plant or wildlife.

Local restaurants are safer, it’s just that simple. During any e. coli outbreak you be assured that you’re safe when eating locally, because your food was grown here, not at one of the monster farms that can quickly infect millions of meals if even the slightest thing goes wrong. Not only that, but fresher food is simply healthier for you, imported foods lose many nutritional values (only the good ones though, the fat doesn’t go anywhere) that keep you at your healthiest. The greater the distance between farm and restaurant, the more time food has to go bad.

Unless you’re a fan of parking lots, you probably enjoy the beautiful green areas where you may live. Eating at your local diner instead of grabbing something that once might have resembled meat from a drive-thru can help keep your area beautiful. This all comes back to the relationship between local restaurants and local farms. Farms own a lot of land, and they depend on local stores and restaurants for business, which in turn depend on you. If you send all of your money out of the area into the hands of corporations, this system collapses. First the restaurant is forced to sell out to whatever chain wants a new location, and then farm land is up for sale as commercial property.

Going to a locally owned restaurant instead of a big chain helps your community in a variety of ways (and tastes better!). Besides, if you’re going to be spending the same amount of money either way, wouldn’t you rather have better, healthier food? In times where businesses are closing their doors twice as fast as new ones open, doing simple things like this that promote our economy should be a no-brainer.

We hope that you choose locally-owned Niagara Falls restaurants on your vacation, and we hope that you make the Four Brothers Restaurant and Tavern one of those choices!