Art Deco Icon Gets New Life

That restaurant was shuttered a quarter of a century ago when Eaton’s went bankrupt. Given the socio-political situation in 1999 — four years after the second Quebec referendum and years before Montreal would re-establish itself as a global icon of hipsterism — the closure of the Eaton’s ninth-floor restaurant was discouraging.

Eaton’s was perhaps the last holdout of the old anglophone establishment in Montreal. Though memories of “les grosses Anglaises de chez Eaton” (the fat Englishwomen of Eaton) — an unfortunate stereotype of stubborn anglophone (and anglophile) store clerks who refused to serve their clients in French — have faded from today’s collective consciousness, such was not the case twenty-five years ago. Who can forget that “Mr. Eaton” mistakenly sent a young Roch Carrier the hated Toronto Maple Leafs jersey in the renowned author’s short story “The Hockey Sweater”?

This deep-rooted cultural aversion to all things Eaton’s notwithstanding, the separatist Quebec government unexpectedly heeded the call of preservationists. The ninth floor was designated as a heritage property under Quebec’s Cultural Heritage Act in August 2000. The restaurant and its oak-and-walnut floors, its marble pillars, as well as all of its fixtures, furnishings, and flatware would be preserved in its entirety.