Refusing to raise prices for his student clientele, who enjoyed the good years of Le Saint-Sulpice bar, owner Maurice Bourassa resigned himself to closing shop. But already, the businessman has new plans for the building and the huge adjacent land he owns. And the students will still be at the center of the project.
For several generations of students, Le Saint-Sulpice, located a stone’s throw from UQAM and the Cégep du Vieux Montréal, on rue Saint-Denis, in Montreal, has been a place of meeting and festivities. , to the point where it has acquired the title of “institution” and even “legendary bar” over the years. But after 43 years of service, the owner decided to move on.
“I find it sad,” he says, comfortably settled in his home, where The duty met him at the end of the day on Monday. His big blue eyes, which a few minutes earlier had been very lively, are blurring a bit. “It took a long time to set up this business, I would have liked it to continue, but there was no succession. »
The man evokes good memories of a bygone era: meetings, parties, evening atmosphere. “Around the 2000s, it was very busy,” he says. Smiling, he talks about the celebrations of the 30e anniversary of the bar, where the artist Armand Vaillancourt had unveiled a statue that adorns the establishment’s famous terrace.
But then, why close? “Currently, the square meter is too expensive for us to set affordable prices as we used to with our student clientele, this is one of the main reasons, he confides. My objective was to offer students prices adapted to their budget. »
But it’s not just the prices, he admits. “Behaviours have changed, there are fewer people going to bars now,” he notes with a resigned shrug. It’s a trend he says started with the banning of smoking in bars and on patios.
Just before the pandemic, in the fall of 2019, Maurice Bourassa did great work. When these were over, the pandemic hit, forcing bars and restaurants to close for long months. The Saint-Sulpice never reopened, and the bar is now empty. It is now used as a filming location for TV.
“Giving back to students”
Maurice Bourassa put the establishment up for sale in 2019, but no one wanted to take over the business. Several promoters have shown interest in building condos there, but no offer has materialized, because the City refuses to allow buildings to be higher than three floors, he explains.
The businessman also refuses to divide up the land, whose area exceeds 21,000 square feet and which has access to Saint-Denis, Émery and Sanguinet streets. “I’ve often had the opportunity to break it all up: the land, just the house in front, or just rue Émery. But me, I tell myself that I didn’t collect all that together to redivide and do little things. I want to do something imposing since the terrain allows it. »
“I mourn [du bar], but I’m not sitting there doing nothing. I am thinking of developing”, he explains enthusiastically. With a firm of architects, he is working on a project that he wants to present to the City of Montreal. “I will propose a residential complex that meets the needs of the community. We want to put in residences for students, like small studios, but also local services: convenience store, daycare, small bistro, things like that. I think it would be a good opportunity to give back to the students what they have done during all these years of encouraging me. »
On his desk, a screen broadcasts live images from the security camera located at the entrance to Saint-Sulpice. He smiles when he sees journalists there asking passers-by about the closure of the establishment. Earlier today, he read some comments left under the Facebook post he wrote on Sunday announcing the closure. “I’m happy that people liked the place, that they had fun coming here. [Ça me fait dire que] I succeeded. »