A plea from local businesses to support them or risk losing them.  That dire warning comes on the heels of the closure this Saturday of Juniper Kitchen and Wine Bar, a restaurant nearly two decades old.

It’s one of several to shut down in recent weeks. Rising hydro costs, rising rents and the rising cost of food are all the mounting pressures that are pushing many small local businesses to the brink.

Not a day goes by that Steve Wallace doesn't worry about business.  Wallace and his wife opened Burnt Butter on Wellington three years ago. 

‘You know how it is in restaurant business,’ Wallace says, as he serves a couple of women in his restaurant, ‘one day, just packed, last Saturday, Sunday and Friday and then the next day it’s slow, then you worry.’

Norm Aitken and his partner worried too.  The owners of the Juniper Kitchen and Wine Bar watched as costs rose and profits fell.

‘I can go down a list of 65 things on the income statement,’ says Aitken, ‘and it goes down to even the linen.  It costs me $2.35 just to set a table. Just to set a table!’

After 17 years in business, the Richmond Road restaurant closed its doors Saturday; one of half a dozen in the last few weeks.

Ian Fraser runs Cyclelogik, a cycle shop on Wellington.  He moved from the high rents of Westboro to the more affordable Hintonburg. But as that has grown in popularity, so, too have costs.

‘Rents are definitely going up here,’ he says, ‘nothing goes down.  Hydro is definitely a concern.

And today, Ottawa's mayor waded into the discussion, urging commercial landlords to consider the bottom line for their tenants, too.

‘We have to rely on landlords to be good corporate citizens and not force some of these great local businesses out of business,’ Jim Watson said. 

That's one solution. The other is customer support.  The Wellington West Business Improvement Association says people need to use these local businesses or risk losing them.

‘If anything, I think it's a call for people to get out and shop local and support their local neighborhood business,’ says Zachary Dayler, ‘because it's these people’s livelihoods that make these wonderful communities we live in.’

Norm Aitken couldn't agree more.  He plans to reinvent a new business and hopes this time, things will be different

‘Someone has to take a peek at this and go “What's wrong with this model?” because this model ain't working. Something's broken.’