It's been a rough year for business owners in Toronto, especially those running their own bars and restaurants. 

Unfortunately for businesses along Wellington Street East, things have been even more difficult due to what seems like an endless stream of construction taking place in the area.

The construction has limited an already reduced amount of foot traffic, has made things difficult for customers looking to pickup orders, and has been a general headache that started long before the pandemic was even ever on anyone's radar.

"We've been experiencing construction on Wellington since we opened on Wellington about 5 years ago," Chris Venutolo, Owner of Power Up Game Bar told blogTO. 

"It's been really tough even before Covid, and now it's tough to get delivery people in and stuff."

The construction has been for everything and anything. From infrastructure work on the pipes in the area, to a current project of beautifying the road with patio areas.

Unfortunately for businesses such as Power Up Game Bar, the patio space is mostly reserved for specific businesses.

A number of business owners have mentioned that all of this construction has gone down with little to no consultation or compensation from the city. 

Construction on Wellington Street, looking east from Yonge. 

"It's so bad now, it's hard for customers to come in to get food. We've had a lot of complaints but there's nothing we can do," Paul Lapsiripol, Manager at Sukhothai told blogTO.

"I've been in this location for six years, there's always major or minor constructions. I don't know what they're doing a lot of the time."

Running  a business is hard enough, especially over the past year. However the endless construction along Wellington has been some extra salt in the wound for many business owners.

While Toronto is notorious for construction at all times of day across the city, the hope is that these businesses will soon get a brief reprieve from it as things return to normal.