A restaurant establishment is:

• a place where meals are generally sold for consumption on the premises;
• a place where meals are sold for consumption elsewhere than on the premises;
• a place where a caterer carries on a business.

The term “meal” includes beverages intended for human consumption. As such, an establishment that ordinarily sells beverages for consumption on the premises is considered a restaurant establishment. Note that, if a business offers catering services but doing so is not the main activity of the business (for example, grocery stores and bakeries that also provide catering services), only the catering service is considered a restaurant establishment.

However, the term “restaurant establishment” does not refer to:

• a place where 90% or more of the meal sales are tax-exempt;
• a place where 90% or more of the meals are reserved for the staff of a business;
• a place where meals are offered in a mobile vehicle (such as a mobile canteen, an airplane, a ship or a train);
• a place where 90% or more of the meals are sold for consumption in stands, bleachers, or in a space reserved for the participants or spectators of a theatre, a movie theatre, an amphitheatre, a racetrack, an arena, a stadium, a sports centre or any other similar place, except in the case of a cinema, theatre or other similar place, if the sales made in that place are mainly (more than 50%) sales of:
  • meals, or
  • property or services for which part of the sale relates to the sale of a meal or authorizes the client to receive a meal or a discount on the price of a meal;
• a place where meals are sold for consumption elsewhere than on the premises and the business is a butcher shop, bakery, fish shop, grocery store or similar business;
• a place that is laid out to ordinarily sell meals for consumption on the premises, that is integrated into the business premises of another business of the operator that is not a restaurant establishment, and that is designed in such a way that fewer than 20 persons can consume meals on the premises simultaneously (for example, a small restaurant in a hotel or a store).