By: Jim Roddy, President & CEO at the RSPA
My mission while attending the 2025 Restaurants Canada (RC) Show and the RSPA Canadian Community Networking Event in Toronto April 7-8 was to gather intel for RSPA members on the hottest hospitality technologies, the state of restaurants in Canada, and the impact of tariffs on our channel.
I’ll get to all that in a minute, but first I feel compelled to share some global lessons (pun intended) I was reminded of during my travels that all VARs, ISVs, and vendors regardless of geography can benefit from.
LESSON 1: Technology is just your baseline product; what matters more is clearly communicating the unique value you provide customers. Talk business first, technology second. A longtime RSPA member once analyzed booths he visited at a trade show with a heavy dose of snarkiness: “Before I stopped by, I couldn’t tell what they did. And after talking with them, I know even less.” I encountered that during some of my RC Show conversations.
It was a reminder to me that retail IT channel companies should equip every public-facing team member to crisply answer the questions “How does your solution benefit the merchant?” and “How is your solution different from everybody else?” If your answers aren’t compelling, you’ll struggle to win new business. Heck, you’ll struggle just to hold their attention for more than 60 seconds. Your approach should be to talk business first, technology second.
LESSON 2: VARs and ISVs won’t hesitate to change suppliers this year. I started working in the retail IT channel in 1998 and saw over many years difficulty vendors encountered convincing VARs and ISVs to change suppliers. But during COVID, supply chain shortages forced solution providers into the arms of strangers to avoid losing merchants who needed product. Several Canadian solution providers I talked with are actively exploring alternate suppliers who can provide the lowest-cost option as the international tariff war ramps up (as of this writing). Those VARs and ISVs learned during the pandemic that several capable vendors in our space are just one phone call or email away.
LESSON 3: Be a reliable partner. I know that advice might elicit you to think, “Gee, thanks Captain Obvious!,” but right now the U.S. isn’t perceived as a reliable partner by many Canadians, and that’s stinging several Canadian RSPA members I talked with. It’s uncertain to them what’s going to happen in terms of U.S. tariffs short-term or long-term. Company leaders in the retail IT channel can’t change government regulations, but it’s in their control to be a reliable partner for their employees, their customers, and their suppliers. This point ties in with the next lesson …
LESSON 4: Erratic movement is always bad. I’ve counseled VARs and ISVs over the years to gradually raise their prices as the cost of living increases. A small increase every other year is accepted more readily than a sudden massive price hike. Same goes for your product and service offering. Add a couple of new products or services every year vs. overhauling what you do because you’ve fallen way behind industry trends. The only way to do this is by engaging with your key constituencies (your employees, your customers, your vendors, your partners, your peers, and your industry association), asking questions, and actively listening to what they tell you. Adjust course as appropriate by tilting the plane you’re piloting up or down or left or right a couple degrees. Don’t close your ears and your mind for an extended period of time which could result in needing to nosedive or swerve left which would cause your constituencies to grab XL barf bags. Erratic movement is bad – always.
LESSON 5: Success in the channel requires uncommon persistence. I try to avoid being preachy, but I’m guilty as charged preaching ad nauseam the process of Try, Test, Measure, Adapt to move your business forward. I should probably add a fifth step: Repeat. One VAR I talked with this week shared a story of a deal they closed that was six years in the making. It’s a reminder that what we do in the retail IT channel is not one-call business and more like 100-call business. If you’re not finding success landing a particular merchant or partner, don’t give up. Instead continue to Try, Test, Measure, Adapt, and then Repeat. Nobody is a skilled musician after one guitar lesson. Embrace the process.
LESSON 6: Show up. Nearly 100 executives attended the RSPA Canadian Community Networking event the evening of April 8 at Henderson Brewing. Some were Toronto locals while others were in town for the RC Show. I want to call out and commend two leaders of a small startup ISV who RSPA Sr. Member Services Manager Nicole Greene and I met earlier that day at the RC Show’s startup alley.
This ISV from Vancouver had travelled across the country, worked two days of the show, attended their early evening commitment, and then chose to fight traffic to arrive at the brewery and engage with total strangers during the event’s third and final hour. I made sure to introduce them to BlueStar Canada President and former RSPA Chair Michel Sirois who I thought would be intrigued by their AI voice agent and cybersecurity solution. After a brief conversation, Michel expressed his genuine interest, they exchanged contact information, and Michel asked them to schedule a meeting with him for next week.
That ISV had many reasons to rationalize why they shouldn’t have attended the RSPA’s event, but because they showed up, they’ve now got a chance to work with one of the most influential retail IT channel organizations in Canada. If you show up, you’ll have a chance to be rewarded. If you stay home, you’ll only get more of the same.
This marked my fourth RC Show which provides me with a perspective of the Canadian restaurant market across the past four years:
- 2022 = Crawl: Surviving restauranteurs, bruised and battered, were finally beginning to emerge from COVID
- 2023 = Walk: While the U.S. was back near a pre-COVID brisk pace, the Canadian restaurant market was still playing catchup and nursing persistent wounds
- 2024 = Run, but with a slight limp: RC Show 2024 boasted the largest expo hall and strongest attendance I had seen to date, but many at the event were still not hitting full stride yet
- 2025 = When will this darn limp go away?: Show organizers reported once again a record-setting expo hall and attendance appeared strong again, but many solution providers told me they continue to experience headwinds.
I heard lots of sunshine in their comments, but they said what’s still clouding Canadian restaurants are tariff uncertainties resulting in less investment, a low volume of new restaurant openings, chains recovering but independents still lagging, and increased competition from cloud-based SaaS POS providers especially in large cities. Regarding the uncertainty, one VAR described it to me as “brutal.”
More Insights from RC Show, RSPA Canadian Event
- What I saw most often in the RC Show tech pavilion was complete restaurant solutions (POS systems, payment terminals, menu management, kiosks, online ordering, kitchen display systems, etc.). Startup alley featured several AI-based solutions.
- RSPA members who exhibited at this year’s RC Show included Armagh POS Solutions, Cluster POS, Epson, Global Payments, MicroTouch, PAX, Shift4, Square, and TechRyde.
- For 2026, the RC Show will move from the Enercare Centre in downtown Toronto to the International Centre at Mississauga, about 15 miles (25 kilometers) east of the city and a stone’s throw from the Toronto airport. That will also mean a new home for the next RSPA Canadian Community event after two years at Henderson Brewing which is close to downtown Toronto. The RC Show will also move up a month and will be held Sunday through Tuesday, March 8-10, 2026.
- Sponsors of the RSPA Canadian Community event were BlueStar, Citizen, Datacap, Global Payments, National Retail Solutions, Partner Tech, Shift4, Star Micronics, and Toshiba.
- With the recent conflict between the U.S. and Canada, I was concerned how a born-and-bred American like me would be welcomed in Toronto. My concern turned out to be unfounded. Everyone I crossed paths with was friendly and accommodating as usual. And the first song at the Monday night RC Show reception was “Sweet Home Alabama,” so there is still at least one friendly bridge between our countries.
