Montreal City Weblog

Kate 08:53 on 2020-06-17 Permalink Reply  

• Bill Binns 09:53 on 2020-06-17 Permalink

  Oh no! I haven’t been there for over a decade but it was a favorite for years. I don’t know the actual history of the place but it feels like a survivor from the era of theme restaurants in the late 60’s early 70’s. The waitresses wore humiliating polyester uniforms and the placemat was the menu.

• Joey 09:59 on 2020-06-17 Permalink

  I ate there once about 12-13 years ago out of curiosity. The food was fine, you know ribs and fries. The number of visible rodent traps was… substantial…

• CE 10:05 on 2020-06-17 Permalink

  I used to bike by that place every day on my way to work and I could never tell if the place was in business or not. It struck me as the kind of place where the entirety of the clientele had subscriptions to the Gazette.

• Mr.Chinaski 10:11 on 2020-06-17 Permalink

  There’s still one in DDO for those 6 Gazette subscripters

• Michael Black 11:09 on 2020-06-17 Permalink

  Wait.

  The only reason I know about the Bar-B-Barn is from ads on the radio (well maybe much later on tv). I’m sure Ralph Lockwood would do plugs (I’m sure he was paid), but he read directly on the air) on CKGM in 1972. There must have been ads on CJAD later, though more formal.

  Ads in newspapers generally fade into the background, unless it’s a new ad, or it somehow interests you. So I can’t say if the place advertises in the Gazette.

• Kate 11:11 on 2020-06-17 Permalink

  Michael Black, you know, I have a ghost memory of a male announcer bellowing “Bar-B Barn” on the radio in the background of earlier phases of my life, too.

• GC 12:30 on 2020-06-17 Permalink

  I’ve walked by many many times and also wondered if it was even still in business. The combination of the parking–I think–being in the back and the restaurant set back (and up?) from the sidewalk made it unclear if anyone was ever inside. And there didn’t tend to be foot traffic going in the entrance on the Guy side.

  I also wondered if maybe it was a gem with some sort of unpretentious-but-wonderful food, but I never made the effort to try and find out.

• Blork 14:09 on 2020-06-17 Permalink

  Bar-B-Barn TV ads from the 80s with Ralph Lockwood: https://youtu.be/LyWSYkvA6C0

• Kate 14:41 on 2020-06-17 Permalink

  CE, GC, I think the Guy Street resto may have failed partly because it never updated its look. That entrance with the faux wood and the canopy over the stairs might have telegraphed something attractive in 1967, but as your clientele ages and dies off you’ve got to do something to make a place look more open and inviting to a new generation of eaters. And they didn’t.

• Ian 17:57 on 2020-06-17 Permalink

  It was okay but the ribs were too sweet IMO., they did have good fries though. My boss used to drive down and pick up ribs for us when we were pulling an all-nighter working on catalogues back when I was working as a graphic designer for one of the knitting mills on de Gaspé. I appreciated it and have fond memories. It’s no Baton Rouge, though, and I think they never really recovered from the Forum closing down. Why they didn’t become a tourist icon like Schwartz’s is probably because that whole area was pretty gross for decades, same thing happened to Alpenhaus which was also a trendy hotspot back in the day.

• GC 19:33 on 2020-06-17 Permalink

  Yes, Kate. It always made me think of a Ponderosa from my childhood–the early 80s. Not everything needs to be chalkboards and stainless steel, but maybe they could have updated it a bit in the 21st century.

• Uatu 23:29 on 2020-06-17 Permalink

  Their ribs weren’t all that great (baton Rouge was better) And yeah the place looked like a dump. I also remembered a commercial which was just a slo-mo close up of ribs while Ralph Lockwood said “mmmmm…” Everytime my friends and I laughed and said “ughhhh” because in our opinion they sucked

• Ian 15:11 on 2020-06-20 Permalink

  On a side note if you do like ribs and want some really good ones Blackstrap BBQ in Verdun is pretty amazing.