Pandemic. E-commerce and megacenters. Inflation. Labor shortage. There is no shortage of traumatic shocks for the shopping streets of Quebec. This summer, The duty therefore evaluates in walking mode the resilience of some of them. Second promenade: rue Fleury, in Montreal, reflecting socio-demographic changes.
The socio-demographic and commercial transformation of Montreal North in recent decades is electrically exposed on the ceiling of the St-Rémi hardware store on rue Fleury, east of boulevard Saint-Michel.
Looking up, the customer discovers a long row of metal boxes lined up next to the neon lights. The electrical junction systems aren’t part of some weird hanging plan of renovating the otherwise immaculate trade. The owner, Louis Gravel, explains that it is rather the vestiges of the years when the City, before the municipal mergers of 2002, was still largely populated by Italo-Quebecers.
“These customers loved the crystal chandeliers,” explains Mr. Gravel, whom he met while touring the area one afternoon in late June. “So, we lit about fifteen of them in line in the evening as an exhibition showcase. The Italians moved and we took down the lights. »
Quincaillerie St-Rémi takes its name from the parish founded in 1956 on the initiative of Cardinal Paul-Émile Léger, who wanted to reinvigorate the faith in view of the Second Vatican Council. The nearby modern church built in the early 1960s bears witness to this. The octagonal building signed by the architect Roger D’Astous would now need a lot of products and customers from the hardware store.
Louis Gravel opened his business at the age of 22, with his father, in 1978. He was then a young graduate of HEC. This training shines through when he traces the great arc of changes in the economy of his sector with the arrival of supermarkets having gradually swallowed up many neighborhood hardware stores like his and recessions returning periodically like the plague of business. In the early years, his very small business employed up to six people. There were still two left recently. Since the pandemic, the owner has remained alone at the post.
“I’m not complaining,” continues Mr. Gravel after serving a customer. He explains that his turnover has even increased a little during the last two more or less confined years. First, because its well-known hardware store still attracts a loyal clientele. Then, because, like everyone else, North Montrealers took advantage of periods of confinement to polish, tinker, renovate. But not by installing bling bling chandeliers…
The pandemic passes
Café Pronto, at the intersection of Avenue de Bruxelles, also dates from the time when Italian-Quebecers dominated the area. Pasquale Aversa founded this business which repairs espresso machines and serves excellent ones prepared by his son at the counter.
He admits it frankly: the pandemic has caused him to lose half of his turnover, already affected for two decades by the exodus of Italian-Quebecers to Ahuntsic or Laval. “Mornings and evenings are much quieter now,” he says. In addition, the new owner of the buildings on this street corner wants to double the rent of the commercial leases, he reveals, which should eat into $700 more income per month. “The government provided aid during the crisis,” says Mr. Aversa. Now it’s over. »
The crisis passes. Sociodemographic changes remain. This change is clearly visible in the other commercial offers at the end of the street, where five of the nine businesses cater to an Arab-Quebec clientele by offering a Middle Eastern grocery store, bakery and pastry shop, Moroccan decorative objects and a nut roaster.
Mohamad Sobh serves the customers of the company founded 30 years ago by his immigrant father who was fleeing the Lebanese civil war. He himself was born in Montreal North and still lives there, near the river.
The Sobh family has six children, all of whom went on to university while helping out in the business. Salt-roasted (not oil-roasted) nuts in the back room attract connoisseurs from miles around.
Distribution Mix Nuts inc. received $40,000 in government assistance, three-quarters of it in the form of loans. “COVID reduced the clientele and we closed for four months, explains the young man still a student. People have become even more accustomed to shopping online. Street work prevented people from parking. The business has been affected. But local customers have remained loyal to us. »
Hijab and gilding
The district has a few other commercial arteries, such as rue Monselet and rue de Charleroi and a portion of boulevard Pie-IX. Rue Fleury as elsewhere, urban development dates from another time. Wires hang from utility poles and there are no bike paths.
A little further west, past the Fatima Azzahra mosque, after a very atypical curve in the checkerboard of the Montreal road network, the Al-Sondos boutique sells Middle Eastern fashion clothing and accessories “for veiled women and children and also for people who like the oriental look, ”says its advertisement. Traditional abayas, silk evening dresses and hijabs of all kinds (chiffon, butterfly, pashmina, etc.) rub shoulders with perfumes, Islamic prayer clocks, lecterns to delicately support the Koran and even “halal vitamins”.
This is Ali’s cave. Of Ali Al-Annan, of course, son of the founders of the store. “Everything is 100% imported,” he explains, with a big smile on his face. He himself has reduced his overseas business prospecting trips during the pandemic.
“The crisis has disrupted business a lot,” he adds. It’s hard to sell fancy clothes to housebound customers. »
Al-Annan has therefore “made efforts online” and diversified its stock by offering luxury tea tableware overloaded with gilding. “It’s my mother who gives the new ideas,” he said, pointing to Mrs.me Al-Annan sitting in a corner of the shop.
The Al-Sondos chain has three other stores in the metropolitan area, one on Gouin, another on rue Jean-Talon and yet another in Brossard. Ali Al-Annan recently quit his job as a chemist to take care of the small network and get the business going again at full speed.
Those of Felina, they are not going well at all by her own admission. The pandemic shut down her hair salon of the same name for nine months. The CERB helped get through those difficult months and years.
“All prices have gone up,” says the owner of the hair salon of the same name. Everything is getting more and more expensive. So, clients cut expenses and come to see me less and less. »
Felina advertises her “miracle hands” in the window. Her daughter is sleeping on a sofa near the entrance. For the past eight years, the business has occupied a small premises on a small end of Fleury Street between two intersections where there are two restaurants, a bakery, an animal grooming shop, a convenience store and no less than four hair salons, all specializing in a type of service where a more or less ethnocultural clientele: Fayad and Giacomo at the two ends of the block serve men, Maga and Félina do women’s hair exclusively.
The hairdresser of Dominican origin emigrated here eleven years ago, where she joined her husband, Daniel, who has been living in Montreal for three times as long. “I take care of Quebecers, Haitians, Africans or Arabs,” says Fatima, recounting in her own way the socio-demographic and commercial transformation of Montreal North in recent decades.