Faced with the success of Chef Colombe St-Pierre’s Coastal Canteen, the City of Rimouski wants to dust off its bylaws affecting street food on its territory.
Posted at 12:00 a.m.
Established in two containers placed in front of the Chez Saint-Pierre restaurant in Bic, a municipality attached to Rimouski, in the Bas-Saint-Laurent, the very popular canteen which sometimes serves up to 500 customers a day was closed. potential next year.
Set up in the first summer of the pandemic, in 2020, the kiosk of the famous chef and coach on the show The Chiefsamong others, had been temporarily authorized to operate on this municipal land, a permission renewed without problem the following year when Quebec was still under significant health measures.
However, informed last winter of Colombe St-Pierre’s decision to continue the adventure during the summers to come, the City initially warned her that this would not be possible. A piece of news that initially surprised and disappointed the owners of Chez Saint-Pierre.
“For us, the Coastal Canteen still allows us to keep the restaurant [Chez Saint-Pierre] in operation, because [sinon] that wouldn’t really be viable. It is an offer that we can no longer do without in the region, and even that it would take others! The demand is far greater than the supply,” explains co-owner Alexandre Vincenot, spouse of the chef.
A matter of fairness
In fact, Rimouski’s municipal by-law prohibits the operation of “a container trailer, trailer or other vehicle […] to exercise a main, temporary or complementary use,” explains the mayor of the City, Guy Caron, in an interview with The Press.
“Obviously in a case like COVID, we had decided to look at this on a case-by-case basis in order to help restaurateurs in difficulty”, recalls the one who was elected last November, and therefore after the appearance of the virus.
PHOTO OLIVIER JEAN, LA PRESSE ARCHIVES
Guy Caron, Mayor of Rimouski
Mayor Guy Caron says he still recognizes the value “that a canteen like that can have for Colombe and for the rest of us, for the region, for tourism”. “But a city must enforce its regulations and there is also a question of fairness. »
Hence the idea of asking the municipal administration to revise the regulations on street food “from a perspective where Rimouski is interested in being attractive from a tourist point of view,” he says.
It’s one thing to say that we make exceptions, but if we do, it must also be done for other restaurateurs, hence the importance of seeing the situation as a whole.
Guy Caron, Mayor of Rimouski
“We got there”
Although he does not want to presume the conclusions of the consultation he himself commissioned, Guy Caron believes “we have reached that point” with the regulation on street food. “If done well, it can be […] popular with locals and tourists,” he says.
A possible competition from outside restaurateurs to Rimouski restaurateurs with storefronts was one of the concerns raised during discussions at the municipal council, he says.
“We agree, you shouldn’t put this next to a lot of restaurants [qui existent déjà] “, opines the co-owner of the Coastal Canteen Alexandre Vincenot. The latter, however, pleads for a fairly restrictive regulation in order to “make a selection at the base”.
Proud activist of Quebec food autonomy, like his spouse, he pleads for the inclusion of local purchasing targets. ” [Par exemple], so demand that it be 95% local purchase. These are relatively simple measures and when you want, you can, ”says the restaurateur.
[Un règlement]it changes much more easily than creating a coastal canteen.
Alexandre Vincenot, co-owner of Chez Saint-Pierre and the Coastal Canteen
To reinvent oneself
The hotel manager also stresses the need for regulations to adapt to the new post-COVID reality. “When we chose to reopen [durant la pandémie], we had no choice. We were still asked at the government level to reinvent ourselves, we reinvented ourselves and it works very well, ”he says. The Coastal Canteen, “it works very, very well”. “Why would we take it off?” »
Alexandre Vincenot and Colombe St-Pierre have good hopes of eventually signing a three-year agreement with the City of Rimouski in order to perpetuate the presence of their canteen at Bic.
Mayor Guy Caron expects the conclusions of the municipal administration regarding the revision of the street food bylaw to be released in the fall or early winter in view of the next tourist season. “For now, the intention is that it can continue,” he adds, about the Coastal Canteen.