It’s been more than two weeks since Quebec businessman and influencer Olivier Primeau posted a viral TikTok video calling the poutine at Chez Mag one of the best in the province. Now, even with Quebec’s construction holiday behind them, staff at the local snack bar are scrambling to keep up with a surge in customers.
“The first three to four days, it was really rough — really, really rough,” said Marc-Antoine Gagnon, co-owner of Casse-Croûte Chez Mag, a snack bar on Île d’Orléans, about 30 kilometres from Quebec City. “Even for my brother and sister, we were like, ‘What is going on? What are we going to do?’ It’s overwhelming.”
Normally, Chez Mag sees up to 800 people per day. But since the TikTok video went viral, it’s been serving closer to 1,600.
Gagnon and his siblings, who run the snack bar with him, have had to get creative to keep up with the surge in clients.
He now starts his days at 6 a.m. and works until late in the evening to make sure everything runs smoothly. They’ve also hired more than 12 new employees over the last few weeks and purchased a trailer, which now sits just next to the snack bar, to give them a second location to serve more people and reduce wait times.
The current owners bought Chez Mag from their parents about three years ago, rebranding it as a gourmet food stand. It quickly became known among locals for its lobster rolls and lobster poutines, but lately it’s the “classic” poutine that’s had people lining up for hours.
“Even the ‘classic’, the thing that we thought was the most basic ingredients, the most basic thing that we had, is still one of the best in Quebec so imagine the rest of the menu,” Gagnon said. “I’m pretty excited now because I see all the people that come from everywhere in Quebec.”
Gagnon said he owes the success of the poutine to his step-father, who crafted the recipe and who runs a second Chez Mag location in Kamouraska. That snack bar has also seen its number of clients double since the review came out, as some in the Quebec City area prefer the longer drive to waiting in line on Île d’Orléans.
He said he was also surprised and grateful to find his suppliers could keep up with the increased orders — the poutine’s main ingredients are sourced in Quebec, using cheese curds from Lac-Saint-Jean and potatoes from Île d’Orléans.
“The hard thing in life is to offer quality and that’s what we are serving over quantity,” Gagnon said.
He said some customers have been willing to wait as long as two hours just to try the now-famous recipe.
“It’s worth it. We’re hungry, but we can wait to try it,” said Mélanie Tremblay, a customer who didn’t have to wait quite as long.
Others, like customer Gaston Grenier, line up outside the casse-croûte long before it opens to secure their spots in the line.
“I heard people talking about it and saying it’s delicious, and so I wanted to try it,” Grenier said. “So, I came early because it’s a couple of times now that I come here and it’s always so full.”
Like most local snack bars, Chez Mag is a seasonal business. The Île d’Orléans location will stay open until Oct. 31, at which point it will close until next spring.
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