These businesses are on the brink of coronavirus-induced bankruptcy

The Phillips Moving and Storage business is approaching its 100th year of operation.

But the next thing owner Peter McCullough could be moving, is on.

"I closed Friday at five last week and I might never reopen," says McCullough of the North York business.

Founded by the Phillips family in 1923 after patriarch Charles returned from the Great War, McCullough bought the business in 2013, a decade short of its centenary - with that hallmark clearly in mind.

"Now I just got to get her there," McCullough said.

He puts the odds of that happening at 50 per cent at best.

Though listed by the province last week as an essential service, the moving business has essentially dried up, McCullough said.

Listings in the GTA have dropped dramatically due to the COVID-19 pandemic pressing down on the city as well as government protections announced for mortgage holders and renters which prevent anyone being forcefully removed, he said.

For McCullough that meant closing shop.

"It came to me that if I stayed open, I would most likely not make it," he said, adding that bookings going into prime moving season were at zero.

"So the only play I had was to mothball this thing ... defer all my costs until this thing passes and maybe pop up on the other side."

The major obstacle to that decision is the $12,500 monthly rent he pays on his Steeles Avenue West facility.

"My landlord understands, but of course we haven't really dealt with it," McCullough said. "Last week I said 'April 1, I'm calling you out of respect to tell you I'm not paying you,' " he said.

While his understanding landlord agreed to defer his rent payments, he by no means forgave them, McCullough said.

"And May 1, I'm going to have $25,000 ... owing to my landlord. So deferrals need to become forgiven before they become default," he said.

"And what about my truck payments, what about my network printer in my office that's a full-service lease. Right now they're all the same, they are all deferred."

Should those deferrals become due before revenues return, then McCullough says he'd be irrevocably on the bad side of his 50-50 survival chances.

McCullough acknowledges and is grateful for the emerging government programs aimed at protecting small businesses through the pandemic's perils.

"I just don't know how they (the programs) will impact me, it's happening so fast," he said.

McCullough sat down individually with his 12 employees last week and told them of their impending layoffs.

"I said 'if we don't close, I can guarantee we go out of business and this mothball play is the only play,' " he recalled. "I said 'if we do this, maybe I can bring you back on the other side, we can save out jobs. Maybe.' "

Oh sure, Tom Antonarakis had put money aside for a rainy day.

"No one could be ready for a storm like this," Antonarakis said.

And the restaurateur, food truck proprietor and fish monger says it's "absolutely" likely the flood of pandemic turmoil will wash away one or more of his businesseswhen asked about the prospect.

And that prospect drills down to the core of his life.

Antonarakis entered the restaurant business before he reached his teens.

"My parent used to own a hamburger joint out in Long Branch - Arnold's Drive In - back in the day," he said.

"And I started when I was 12 years old working in the restaurant industry."

Since going out on his own when he was 21, Antonarakis has accumulated a string of seafood ventures including two Buster's Sea Cove restaurants - one at the Commerce Court the other at St. Lawrence Market where he also has a fish monger booth.

He also has a pair of food trucks and recently opened a Jerk Grille outlet in Commerce Court.

Of these, the food trucks are most in peril, relying as they do on crowded summer street and festivals that will almost certainly never materialize this year.

Of his 30 employees, 20 have been laid off, the rest are still working at his St. Lawrence Fish Market.

The 20 people who would be working Buster's Sea Cove food trucks may not work for him again this year.

Antonarakis says the future of all his ventures depend on how co-operative his landlords are, and how well rent relief plans that governments implement can buoy those businesses.

"If we're closed down for four months, my rent at Commerce Court is $10,000 a month just for the Jerk Grille," he said. "It's $12,000 for Buster's Sea Cove, so I need to come up with $22,000 a month ... just for those two (Commerce Court) locations."

Antonarakis figures he can go two months before folding one or more of those establishments - a crushing prospect.

"It's been my life, it's been my passion. I have what I have because of the food industry," he said.

And at 55 years of age, Antonarakis said he can't start over.

"It's too late in the game," he said