Montreal has lost a lot of restaurants over the years. Some close and disappear without much of a fuss, while others leave behind the kind of memories that keep coming up years later. You hear somebody mention the name and suddenly people are talking about what they ordered, who they went there with and how the place used to be.
That’s what makes a restaurant more than just another restaurant. You can eat somewhere for years without realizing how much it has become part of your routine until the day you can’t go back. The sign comes down, another business eventually takes the space and suddenly a familiar part of Montreal is gone.
That’s what happened with these five restaurants. Bar-B-Barn, Bens, Main Deli, Taverne Magnan and Brown Derby were very different places, but they all became part of Montreal’s food story in their own way. They had regulars, personalities, arguments, favourite dishes and memories that lasted long after the doors closed.
This isn’t a ranking, and I’m not saying these were the five greatest restaurants Montreal ever had. They’re five restaurants that people still talk about, which makes them worth remembering. Some were famous across the city, while others were much more connected to a particular neighbourhood, but all five left something behind.
Bar-B-Barn
Bar-B-Barn was never complicated, and that was part of the appeal. You went for ribs, chicken, fries and the sauce, and you knew exactly what kind of meal you were getting. The first location opened on Guy Street in 1967 and became a Montreal institution, while the Dollard-des-Ormeaux location eventually became the last Bar-B-Barn after the downtown restaurant closed in 2020.
When the DDO location announced that it was closing in March 2024, people showed up in a big way. Customers lined up for one last meal, and the response became so intense that the restaurant closed earlier than originally planned. You don’t get that kind of reaction when people simply like a restaurant; you get it when a place has been part of their lives.
Bar-B-Barn was the kind of restaurant people went to without needing a special reason. Families went, friends went and regulars knew what they wanted before they even sat down. It wasn’t trying to reinvent barbecue or turn dinner into some kind of event, and nobody needed it to do that.
WHAT DINERS ARE SAYING
The memories around Bar-B-Barn tend to be pretty consistent. People talk about the ribs, the chicken, the sauce, the family meals and the fact that the restaurant had been around for so long. The reaction to the final closure made it pretty clear that customers weren’t just saying goodbye to a restaurant; they were saying goodbye to a familiar part of their lives.
Montreal still has barbecue, and there are plenty of places serving ribs and chicken. What Montreal doesn’t have anymore is Bar-B-Barn, with all the history and memories that came with that name.
Bens
Bens was a completely different kind of Montreal institution. Benjamin and Fanny Kravitz opened the restaurant in 1908, and over the decades it became one of the city’s best-known Jewish delicatessens. Smoked meat was obviously a big part of the attraction, but Bens was also about the downtown location, the enormous dining room and the sheer number of people who passed through its doors.
At its peak, Bens was serving thousands of customers a day. That gives you an idea of how important the restaurant had become to downtown Montreal, because this wasn’t a small neighbourhood deli with a handful of tables. It was a major restaurant that had been part of the city for generations.
Bens finally closed in December 2006 after a difficult period that included a labour dispute. The building was demolished a couple of years later, so there isn’t even an old Bens storefront sitting there to remind people what was once inside. The restaurant is gone, the building is gone and what remains is the memory of what the place was.
WHAT DINERS ARE SAYING
People remember the smoked meat, but they also remember Bens itself. There was something about the size, the downtown location and the old-school deli atmosphere that made it different from simply going somewhere for a sandwich.
Montreal still has a strong smoked-meat tradition, and that part of the city’s food culture isn’t disappearing. Bens belonged to an earlier version of that story, though, and once it was gone, one of Montreal’s biggest old restaurant institutions was gone with it.
Main Deli
Main Deli was one of those Montreal restaurants that didn’t need much explanation. It opened on Saint-Laurent Boulevard in 1974, directly across from Schwartz’s, and for almost 50 years it was part of one of the city’s most famous food arguments. Which place had the better smoked meat was something Montrealers could debate forever, and having the two restaurants facing each other made the whole thing even more Montreal.
Some people were Schwartz’s people, some preferred Main Deli and plenty of people probably went wherever the line looked shorter. That was part of the fun because there wasn’t one correct answer. Main Deli had its own customers, its own atmosphere and its own place in the boulevard’s restaurant history.
The restaurant closed permanently in May 2023, and the reaction was immediate. Some employees had been there for more than 35 years, longtime customers were upset and even Justin Trudeau publicly reacted to the closure. When a restaurant can have employees stay for decades and customers return for decades, you know there was something there beyond the food.
WHAT DINERS ARE SAYING
People who miss Main Deli talk about the smoked meat, the atmosphere, the staff and the familiarity of the place. There was comfort in knowing that you could walk down Saint-Laurent, sit down and have the meal you had been having for years.
Schwartz’s is still there, so the smoked-meat story on Saint-Laurent didn’t end. But Main Deli was part of that story, and the boulevard feels different without the restaurant sitting across the street.
Taverne Magnan
Taverne Magnan was the kind of Montreal restaurant that became part of its neighbourhood and then became known across the city. Armand and Marie-Ange Magnan opened the tavern in Pointe-Saint-Charles in 1932, and the restaurant began serving food a few years later. Over time, the roast beef became the thing people associated most with Magnan.
The restaurant grew into a big operation, especially during its busiest years. It was serving hundreds of meals a day and, during the 1980s and 1990s, could reach between 600 and 1,000 meals daily. By the final days, people were coming back in huge numbers for one last roast beef before the restaurant closed after 82 years.
Magnan’s final meal was served in December 2014, ending one of the longest restaurant runs in Montreal. The business faced a combination of problems, including construction, competition and rising beef costs, and eventually the numbers stopped making sense. A few years later, the old building itself was demolished, which removed the last physical reminder of the restaurant from the corner where it had stood for decades.
WHAT DINERS ARE SAYING
The memories of Magnan are about the roast beef, the tavern atmosphere, the staff and the tradition of going there. Some employees had spent decades working at the restaurant, while generations of customers had their own memories of eating there.
Magnan wasn’t trendy, and it didn’t need to be. It had its food, its neighbourhood and its regulars, and it kept doing what it did for more than eight decades. Sometimes that’s exactly what people want from a restaurant.
Brown Derby
Brown Derby is probably the name on this list that fewer younger Montrealers will recognize, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t important. The Jewish delicatessen operated in the Van Horne Shopping Centre around the Van Horne and Victoria area, near Plamondon métro, and became part of the food scene in that part of Montreal.
Brown Derby was gone by the early 2000s, and there isn’t nearly as much documented history about it as there is for Bens or Magnan. What we do have are memories from people who went there, and those memories paint a picture of a big old-fashioned deli serving Jewish food, including smoked meat and matzo ball soup. People also remember the dining room, the late-night atmosphere and the generous portions.
Brown Derby was part of a neighbourhood deli scene rather than an isolated restaurant. It had competition from places such as Snowdon Deli, and people had their favourites. When Brown Derby disappeared, some of the customers simply moved on to other delis, which is often how restaurant history works: one place closes, another takes its customers and eventually the old name becomes something only longtime Montrealers remember.
WHAT DINERS ARE SAYING
The surviving memories of Brown Derby aren’t really about declaring it the greatest deli Montreal ever had. They’re about remembering what it was like to go there, what people ate and what the place felt like. That includes the smoked meat, matzo ball soup, the large dining room and the late-night crowd.
That’s also why I wanted Brown Derby on this list. Not every restaurant that mattered to Montreal left behind a huge archive or a famous building. Some simply left behind stories that people still remember the moment somebody mentions the name. Brown Derby was known for its classic cream of broccoli soup, often served as the comforting soup of the day, as well as its rich, hearty split pea soup, another traditional favourite among the families who frequented the diner.
The Restaurants We Still Miss
These five restaurants were very different from one another, which is probably what makes the list interesting. Bar-B-Barn had ribs and chicken, Bens was a massive downtown deli, Main Deli had its smoked-meat rivalry, Magnan had roast beef and decades of Pointe-Saint-Charles history, while Brown Derby was part of an older Jewish deli scene around Van Horne.
None of them were perfect, and I’m sure there are Montrealers who never liked some of them at all. That’s not really the point. Restaurants become part of a city’s memory because people form a relationship with them, and that relationship can be about the food, the people, the location, the price, the atmosphere or simply the fact that the restaurant was always there.
That’s the part of restaurant history I find interesting. We spend a lot of time talking about what’s opening, who’s cooking and what restaurant everybody needs to try next, but the places that are gone tell us just as much about Montreal. They show us how neighbourhoods changed, how people ate, what mattered to them and which places became part of everyday life.
You can still get ribs in Montreal. You can still get smoked meat, roast beef and matzo ball soup, and there are plenty of new restaurants making their own memories right now. What you can’t get back is the exact restaurant that was there before, with the same people, the same room and the same version of Montreal around it.
That’s why people still talk about these places. It’s not necessarily because everything was better back then, and it’s not because Montreal should stop changing. It’s because once in a while, a restaurant becomes part of your life without you realizing it, and when it’s gone, you notice.
Bar-B-Barn, Bens, Main Deli, Taverne Magnan and Brown Derby are all gone. But they’re still part of Montreal’s restaurant story, and judging by how often their names come up, they’re not being forgotten anytime soon.