Make-or-Break Canada Day Weekend Set to Deliver 30%+ Boost for Canada’s Bar and Restaurant Owners

TORONTO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jun 18, 2025--

The countdown to Canada’s most celebrated summer holiday is on and, for bars and restaurants, this Canada Day long weekend could be a make-or-break moment. According to a new survey commissioned by Square, 72% of Canadians plan to spend more time vacationing in Canada and enjoying local restaurants this year—an increase attributed to the current political climate.

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To help food and beverage sellers make the most of the busy holiday and succeed, technology company Square announced today it is launching its most powerful, portable point-of-sale device yet alongside a suite of industry-specific features and upgrades to empower Canadian businesses to move faster, deliver better customer experiences and grow.

According to newly-released Square data, Canada Day weekend is far more than just a celebration: it’s an important revenue driver for the hospitality industry. In 2024, bars and restaurants using Square to run and grow their businesses saw a 36% nationwide sales jump over the July 1st holiday weekend—building on a 30% rise in 2023. The boost didn’t stop there: after the long weekend, sales remained elevated above the annual average for the next two months—a crucial period for operators aiming to shore up their bottom lines before Fall.

Making the Most of Summer in Canada

This year, nearly three-quarters (72%) of surveyed Canadians anticipate spending more time in the country and at local restaurants, bars and pubs due to the current political climate—and almost half (47%) plan to “make the most of summer in Canada.”

Square data analysts will be monitoring this possible patriotic halo effect on popular food and drink items sold during the Canada Day long weekend. Last year, mocktails, signature poutines, local craft brews, and cocktail pitchers dominated orders over the extended holiday period—setting the tone for a lively 2025 patio season.

New Square Handheld

Every dollar counts between Canada Day and Labour Day—this period represents roughly a quarter of annual sales for many independent bars and restaurants across the country. To help Canadian bars and restaurants make the most of the season, Square is launching Square Handheld, a powerful and pocketable point-of-sale device that weighs in at 0.34 kgs and is only 1.2 cm thick. For quick-service restaurants, that means cutting down on lines during a busy rush, and for full-service restaurants, it’s taking orders tableside or from across the bar.

A durable-yet-elegant device, Square Handheld is designed to stand up to water splashes and dust, plus offers an optional case, designed by Belkin, for added protection against accidental drops. Built to handle the realities of a busy shift, it offers a battery built to last all day and both Wi-Fi and offline payments capabilities—ensuring businesses stay up and running. A camera with integrated barcode scanning capabilities also allows food and beverage businesses to take product pictures and quickly scan in retail offerings like merch or bottles of wine. By eliminating unnecessary trips between tables and the counter, Square Handheld enables servers to provide more attentive service and turn tables more efficiently during peak hours, leading to improved customer satisfaction and increased revenue.

"Square Handheld has made us dramatically faster. It's quick and easy to take orders and payment processing between customer and server is much more pleasant," said Itamar Shani, owner and chef at Chickpea Restaurant in Vancouver, B.C. "The device feels durable – it has high quality construction and no corners prone to chipping; it's definitely built to last."

Streamlining Front and Back of House

Square is also introducing additional new features and expanding its comprehensive partnership ecosystem to help restaurants streamline and grow their businesses even further:

“Square has gone big in restaurants, and it shows, with our product velocity accelerating to include more restaurant-specific tools to help Canadian restaurant and bar owners capture every order, all while freeing up staff to spend more time serving customers,” said Ming-Tai Huh, Head of Food and Beverage at Square. “Square is the technology backbone for hundreds of thousands of businesses across Canada, from neighbourhood cafés to national chains – and with this latest release, we’re giving single unit and multi-unit restaurants the tools they need to operate efficiently and thrive in today's dynamic marketplace – on Canada Day long weekend and throughout the year.”

For more information on Square's recent product innovations and how they can help a single-location full-service restaurant, a busy multi-location quick-service restaurant, a bar or a multiconcept business, visit https://squareup.com/ca/en/townsquare/whats-new-2025.

Methodology

The national omnibus survey was conducted from May 2 to May 5, 2025, among a nationally representative sample of 1,626 Canadian residents aged 18 and older who are members of Leger's online panel, balanced and weighted on age, gender, region, education, and language. For comparison purposes, a probability sample of 1,626 respondents would have a margin of error of ±2.4%, 19 times out of 20.

Square analysis is from transaction data from hundreds of thousands of food and beverage sellers in Canada between January 2023 and December 2024.

About Square

Square makes commerce and financial services easy and accessible with its integrated ecosystem of commerce solutions. Square offers purpose-built software to run complex restaurant, retail, and professional services operations, versatile e-commerce tools, embedded financial services, buy now, pay later functionality through Afterpay, staff management and payroll capabilities, and much more – all of which work together to save sellers time and effort. Millions of sellers across the globe trust Square to power their business and help them thrive in the economy. For more information, visit www.square.ca.

Make-or-Break Canada Day Weekend Set to Deliver 30%+ Boost for Canada’s Bar and Restaurant Owners

Make-or-Break Canada Day Weekend Set to Deliver 30%+ Boost for Canada’s Bar and Restaurant Owners

Make-or-Break Canada Day Weekend Set to Deliver 30%+ Boost for Canada’s Bar and Restaurant Owners

Make-or-Break Canada Day Weekend Set to Deliver 30%+ Boost for Canada’s Bar and Restaurant Owners

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — A former Polish justice minister who faces prosecution in his homeland over alleged abuse of power said Monday that he has been granted asylum in Hungary.

Zbigniew Ziobro was a key figure in the government led by the nationalist conservative Law and Justice party that ran Poland between 2015 and 2023. That administration established political control over key judicial institutions by stacking higher courts with friendly judges and punishing its critics with disciplinary action or assignments to far-away locations.

Current Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s government came to power more than two years ago with ambitions to roll back the changes, but efforts to undo them have been blocked by two successive presidents aligned with the national right.

In October, prosecutors requested the lifting of Ziobro's parliamentary immunity to press charges against him. They allege among other things that Ziobro misused a fund for victims of violence, including for the purchase of Israeli Pegasus surveillance software.

Tusk’s party says Law and Justice used Pegasus to spy illegally on political opponents while in power. Ziobro says he acted lawfully.

Hungary, led by nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, has hosted several politicians close to Law and Justice while Polish authorities were seeking them.

In a lengthy post on X Monday, Ziobro wrote that he had “decided to accept the asylum granted to me by the government of Hungary due to the political persecution in Poland.”

“I have decided to remain abroad until genuine guarantees of the rule of law are restored in Poland,” he said. “I believe that instead of acquiescing to being silenced and subjected to a torrent of lies — which I would have no opportunity to refute — I can do more by fighting the mounting lawlessness in Poland.”

Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó said in Budapest on Monday that Hungarian authorities have granted asylum to “several” individuals who would face political persecution in Poland, according to his ministry. He declined to specify their names.

In an English-language post on X, Tusk wrote that “the former Minister of Justice(!), Mr. Ziobro, who was the mastermind of the political corruption system, has asked the government of Victor Orbán for political asylum.”

“A logical choice,” he added.

FILE - The leader of the Polish junior coalition partners Zbigniew Ziobro, speaks to reporters alongside in Warsaw, Poland, Saturday, Sept. 26, 2020. (AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski, file)