SUDBURY -- It's far from business as usual inside the Colonial Inn; the bar, the banquet hall and the dine-in restaurant have all closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Even still, owner Sandra Bonnis has been busy dealing with the influx of new visitors to her business thanks to a take-out window at the front of her building.

"Due to being shut down, we're definitely not seeing the same margins as prior to COVID," said Bonnis. "However, the takeout portion at the window for us has definitely been helping."

Bonnis has had to make a lot of tough decisions on how to deal with paying the overhead and the mortgage lately, including staff lay-offs. But she says the extra income is helping.

"We're pretty busy, it's been steady, we've been operating Tuesday to Saturday 11-7, it's been going well," she said.

Bonnis is just one of many restaurant owners trying to navigate unprecedented times and she's not the only one seeing a loss of revenue.

According to a new survey from Restaurants Canada, one out of every two independent restaurants does not expect to survive the pandemic if business does not improve within the next three months.

"It's hard when you try to understand that concept of 1-2 restaurants when you walk down the street, may not be here in a few months," said James Rhett, Restaurants Canada's Central Canada vice-president.

Rhett says it's a common sight in the industry right now.

Seventy-five per cent of survey respondents said they are either very or extremely concerned about the current level of debt.

On Friday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced help for small business owners in the way of rent relief. Rhett said he was pleased to see the prime minister's announcement, which he believes is going to help a lot.

"They're saying 'I don't know if I can do that, I don't know if I can start from scratch' basically so this helps a lot in lessening that debt load," he said.

The survey also found most multi-unit foodservice businesses will have to permanently shut down at least one of their locations.

While Bonnis says she's grateful for the take-out business coming in, she's looking forward to the days when this pandemic is over.

"You know we're definitely missing all of our regulars from all three aspects of the business here - but we want to see things go back to normal so we can see a lot of our regulars," she said.

The Bonnis family won't be able to benefit from the prime minister's announcement over rent and lost revenue as they own the building they're operating.

In the meantime, Restaurants Canada is hoping the rent relief will continue until the economy is able to rebound.