The most iconic restaurant in the Plateau Mont-Royal is looking for a new landing strip these days, as it will soon have to cede its strategic location to a residential building.
THE dinner of stainless steel located at the corner of Saint-Denis and Gilford streets will be lucky to escape the demolition attack, since it is completely dismantled and transportable. If all goes as planned, its move will take place 72 years after its manufacture in the United States and 32 years after its arrival in Montreal.
It hosted a restaurant from the small Pizzaiolle brand until the pandemic. Since then, graffiti artists have taken it by storm.
“We are looking for a location to give it a new life. We are open to suggestions, to proposals to do a project,” said Charles Duchesne, boss of the real estate development firm Residia, this week in an interview with The Press.
Demolition was out of the question. […] He will have a new life.
Charles Duchesne, boss of the real estate development firm Residia
Time is running out: Mr. Duchesne has just obtained the green light from the borough to build and hopes to be able to move the dinner from spring.
” A thunderbolt ”
In 2022, Mr. Duchesne and his team purchased the land to develop it. At the same time, they inherited this unusual structure, imported from the United States by an ambitious restaurateur.
PHOTO JOSIE DESMARAIS, THE PRESS
The 72-year-old completely demountable building was installed in its current location and completely restored in 1992.
“We found the wreck in two parts, abandoned for several years, in the suburbs of Boston,” recalled Daniel Noiseux, the businessman in question, on the line. “I had the idea of bringing it back to Montreal and completely renovating it. »
In 1992, Mr. Noiseux invested 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. Result: “an almost museum piece”.
His landing on the Plateau, however, did not please everyone: the Sauvons Montréal organization harshly criticized the lack of cohesion with the neighborhood.
First operated as an authentic American roadside snack bar under the name Galaxie, the restaurant became a pizzeria in 1998. The premises were redecorated on this occasion, but Mr. Noiseux is still extremely attached to his dinner. After La Pizzaiolle closed during the worst of the pandemic, he himself tried to sell the structure, but no transaction was successful. The climate is now more favorable to restoration projects, he said confidently.
“Curiously, there has still been a craze for a few days,” but “it takes someone qualified who understands what they are getting into,” said Daniel Noiseux.
“A great challenge”
Like many Montrealers, Charles Duchesne, from Residia, himself has memories associated with this curious metal box placed on the side of Saint-Denis Street. “When I was younger, with my family, I remember having dinners there,” he recalled. It’s iconic. »
The real estate developer says he is open to all possibilities to give it a new life. THE dinner could leave Montreal or stay there, remain a restaurant or change vocation. “We see it as a great challenge, to find a new vocation for him,” said Mr. Duchesne. He does not intend to make money with this trip, on the contrary: “we are ready to take charge of the project”.
His movement will be facilitated by the documentation work carried out during his move from Massachusetts to Quebec, coordinated by Daniel Noiseux. The structure, mass-produced in the 1950s, is made up of two metal modules.
The memory of dinner will not, however, leave the premises. The new real estate project is called Galaxie, in homage to the restaurant’s first name when it arrived in Montreal.