Iconic snack bar dismantled | The new owner of Pizzaiolle wants to “stay in Montreal”

The new owner of the iconic dinner stainless steel company on Saint-Denis Street announced that it wanted to keep the building in Montreal, while the dismantling of the structure has begun.

Businessman Jean-Pierre Asselin inherited the restaurant located at the corner of Gilford Street, on the Plateau Mont-Royal, because the land is preparing to accommodate a condo project.

“I would like to stay in Montreal,” Mr. Asselin said Friday in a telephone interview. He mentioned the possibility of settling in the Quartier des spectacles, downtown or on the banks of the Lachine Canal with an expanded structure.

“It’s going to be a challenge,” he admitted. He himself works in the field of transport logistics, but indicated that he planned to work with “restaurateur friends who have successful restaurants”. He did not wish to identify them.

Unable to keep the prefabricated building in the metropolis, Jean-Pierre Asselin plans to install it on the side of a highway, perhaps on the A10 at the Porte de l’Estrie.

“Egyptian method”

A few hours before the interview, The Press was able to witness the moving of one of the two sections of the structure, manufactured in the United States in the 1950s. After an initial American career, the dinner had crossed the border in 1992 on the initiative of Montreal restaurateur Daniel Noiseux.

“Time flies… Thirty years!” », said Mr. Noiseux with a sigh as he observed the scene.

In front of him, neither crane nor complex machinery. Specialized workers simply raised the section they had to move with hydraulic jacks before sliding it onto a huge trailer using “skids” and nylon straps. “It’s the Egyptian method,” noted the restaurateur.

“The difficulty is the weight,” explained Justin, one of the workers. Modern prefabricated modules – which he is used to transporting – are much lighter than this one and its layer of “two inches of concrete the size of the floor”.

The second section of dinner, the one facing Saint-Denis Street will be moved in the same way on Monday morning. She will then join her long-time partner on land in the Drummondville region, where the structure will await the next stage of its life.

Before starting it, the restaurant should undergo a makeover. “Everything has to be done, everything has to be redone,” explained Jean-Pierre Asselin, who wants to “modernize all that.” The businessman would also like to expand the restaurant in order to accommodate more customers.

“It was passion that spoke more than reason”

Charles Duchesne, president of the real estate firm Residia, wondered what he was going to do with the dinner of steel by purchasing this strange corner plot of land, in 2022.

After several months of trying to find a serious buyer, he finally turned to Mr. Asselin. “It’s very positive,” he said. Its workers worked throughout the month of April to prepare for the move, among other things by separating the two sections and cleaning the exterior walls of dozens of graffiti that had accumulated there.

Mr. Noiseux was depressed to see his baby smeared. 32 years ago, the man had spent time and money to redo the restaurant identically, with the help of experts, architects and craftsmen. “It was passion that spoke more than reason,” he admitted.

First operated as an authentic American roadside snack bar under the name Galaxie, the restaurant became a pizzeria in 1998. It closed during the pandemic, and never reopened.

Now the restaurant is open to all winds and plywood had to be installed to protect the interior of both sections. “It’s impressive to see him like this. I’m a little moved,” said Charles Duchesne. However, emotion will soon give way to excitement: construction of its 30-unit project, called Galaxie, begins as soon as the field is clear.