Magnan’s Tavern serves its last beef in Pointe St. Charles

MONTREAL — At 11 a.m. on a brisk Sunday morning, patrons slowly started wandering into Magnan’s Tavern, some of them taking photos of a last roast beef plate, or in front of a yellowed newspaper article on the wall.

The tavern announced in October this is the last day it would be open, ending 82 years of history serving the Pointe St. Charles area.

Ownership has cited ongoing hikes in the price of beef, persistent construction in the neighbourhood and changing demographics as the reasons for closure.

More and more, the gritty neighbourhood in the Point where the tavern sank roots going back to 1932 is changing.

“The industries have gone out of the Point, no ifs ands or buts about it,” said Andre Laberge, a patron who started eating at the tavern mid-1980s.

General Manager Alain Gauthier is quick to point out that “this is not the end of the Magnan experience,” pointing to a current satellite location in Brossard and a future spot set to open in Boucherville.

But these franchises are in the suburbs, where the original anchored an industrial neighbourhood that was a core component of Montreal’s working class.

“I think the neighbourhood’s changing, the people are changing,” said one patron who started eating here 25 years ago.

For a while in the 1980s, the restaurant was known as one of the last taverns in Montreal to allow women patrons. It admitted its first female customer in 1989.

About 65 employees lost their jobs as a consequence of the closure and the Teamsters Union indicated in October that wages were being negotiated and a dispute was brewing over severance pay.

Some of the people worked there for more than 40 years. Most of the longer-tenured employees said their tearful goodbyes on Friday.

“I changed fields four months ago,” said Cassandra Viviers, a waitress who worked there for three years.

“So I still help out on my days off. After three years, it’s a family.”