The most famous restaurant in Plateau Mont-Royal is currently looking for a new runway as it will soon have to give up its strategic location to a residential building.
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The stainless steel restaurant on the corner of Saint-Denis and Gilford streets will be lucky to avoid the culmination of demolition because it can be completely disassembled and transported. If all goes as planned, the move will come 72 years after it was made in the United States and 32 years after it arrived in Montreal.
Until the pandemic, it housed a restaurant from the small Pizzaiolle brand. Since then, graffiti artists have taken it by storm.
“We are looking for a location to breathe new life into it. We are open to suggestions, to suggestions on how to implement a project,” said Charles Duchesne, head of real estate development company Residia, in an interview with La Presse this week.
Demolition was out of the question. […] He will have a new life.
Charles Duchesne, head of real estate development company Residia
Time is of the essence: Mr. Duchesne has just received the green light from the municipality for construction and hopes to postpone the dinner in the spring.
“A flash”
In 2022, Mr. Duchesne and his team purchased the property to develop it. At the same time, they inherited this unusual building, which an ambitious restaurateur had imported from the USA.
PHOTO JOSIE DESMARAIS, THE PRESS
The 72-year-old, completely dismantled building was built at its current location and completely restored in 1992.
“We found the wreckage in two pieces, abandoned for several years, in a suburb of Boston,” Daniel Noiseux, the businessman in question, recalled by phone. “I had the idea of bringing it back to Montreal and completely renovating it. »
In 1992, Mr. Noiseux invested time and money to restore the restaurant in the same style with the help of experts, architects and craftsmen. “It was passion that spoke louder than reason,” he admitted. Result: “an almost museum piece”.
However, not everyone liked his landing on the plateau: the Sauvons Montréal organization sharply criticized the lack of cohesion with the neighborhood.
Originally operating as an authentic American roadside snack bar under the name Galaxie, the restaurant was converted into a pizzeria in 1998. The premises have been redecorated for the occasion, but Mr. Noiseux is still very attached to his restaurant. After La Pizzaiolle closed during the worst phase of the pandemic, he himself tried to sell the building, but the transaction was unsuccessful. He said confidently that the climate was now more favorable for restoration projects.
“Oddly enough, there’s still hype for a few days,” but “it takes someone who is qualified and understands what they’re getting into,” Daniel Noiseux said.
“A big challenge”
Like many Montrealers, Charles Duchesne of Residia has memories of this strange metal box placed on the side of Saint-Denis Street. “When I was younger, I remember having dinner there with my family,” he recalls. It's iconic. »
The real estate developer says he is open to all possibilities to breathe new life into it. The guest could leave or stay in Montreal, stay at a restaurant, or change careers. “We see it as a great challenge to find a new calling for him,” Mr. Duchesne said. He doesn't want to make money with this trip, on the contrary: “We are ready to take the project into our hands.”
His move is facilitated by the documentation work carried out during his move from Massachusetts to Quebec and coordinated by Daniel Noiseux. Mass-produced in the 1950s, the structure consists of two metal modules.
However, the memory of dinner will not disappear. The new real estate project is called Galaxie, an homage to the restaurant's first name when it arrived in Montreal.