The man in charge of Jean-Talon market talks here about how it has to change following the pandemic. He’s into adding more restaurant spaces and upscale boutiques. An internal crisis is mentioned but not explained.
Updates from August, 2023 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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Kate
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Kate
A new women’s pro hockey league will start playing in January, and Montreal will have one of the six planned teams.
Josh
The big news here is that two kinda, sorta rival leagues are merging (essentially) into one, and the new one will be collaborating with and have the support of the NHL. Much more likely to survive long-term than either of the previous circuits were.
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Kate
A promenade near the river in Lasalle has been named after union chief Michel Chartrand, who died in 2010.
Blork
Soon the deer will move in. (The park in Longueuil that has the famous deer problem is Parc Michel-Chartrand.)
Orr
Riverside along there (Lachine, Verdun, Lasalle) are some of Montreal’s loveliest parcs and places.
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Kate
Someone vandalized the bust of Camille Laurin on St‑Urbain at Sherbrooke with chains and paint, and not for the first time. What a terrible, terrible tragedy. It would be such a shame if it happened again, multiple times, in the future.
Orr
That is more-or-less diagonally opposite the headquarters of the Société Saint-Jean-Baptiste which has a De Gaulle bust located in front of it and a plaque titled “Vive la liberté” which should come with an irony warning.
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Kate
Ragweed season is lasting longer than it used to, and is making more of us deal with itchy eyes and sneezing. Sud-Ouest borough is trying to counter it by having people tend other plants where ragweed otherwise might be growing.
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Kate
Shots were fired late Monday at a house in Mercier, but nobody was hurt and no arrests have been made.
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Kate
Ridership of the STM is slowly returning to pre‑pandemic levels, with the evening and weekend numbers recovering faster than those around rush hour.
Blork
Is that good news or bad? Pre-pando we were all complaining about overcrowding.
Kate
I think it’s good. It’s not rush hour numbers that are back, and the STM needs the ridership for the revenue and to encourage the political will to support and extend public transit.
Forgetful
I don’t know Kate. Funding dependent on ridership numbers and political support is just too prone to disfunction and vulnerable to crises and structural changes. It also fosters unhealthy competition between the multiple operators we have in Montreal. Stakeholders need to take new approaches to financing the network. The Ministry of Sustainable Mobility is supposedly working on a new revenue model, more on this this fall I believe.
dwgs 18:08 on 2023-08-29 Permalink
That’s what they’ve been doing for the last few years. I guess some people like it but I go to buy local produce and sometimes some local cheese and eggs. If it becomes a touristy see and be seen place I will stop going. They’ve already ruined Atwater.
Kate 18:41 on 2023-08-29 Permalink
I don’t mind the cafés around the perimeter but the central alleys should remain 100% local sellers of produce.
Blork 19:25 on 2023-08-29 Permalink
I agree with Kate. BTW I was there today around noon and wow is it ever much nicer on a Tuesday than a Saturday (if, like me, crowds bring out your inner misanthrope).
carswell 19:27 on 2023-08-29 Permalink
No issues with adding more restaurant stalls but the offer to date is completely overshadowed by that at Atwater market. With the exception of Hamel, upscale boutiques don’t do well at the market — there’s a largish space a few doors west of Hamel where at least two or three versions of a gourmet shop, with prices to match, have lasted less than a year — so I’m not sure that’s the right tack for the market to take.
Interesting to read dwgs’s comment. While Atwater market has changed over the years and I miss the former Fruiterie and a couple of other vendors, I don’t find the current iteration inferior to its predecessors. Several of the resto stalls are first-rate (Satay Bros, Falafel Yoni, Alwyn’s BBQ, the noodle place, etc.), the butchers are better than ever and there are now two cheese mongers and a handful of interesting produce vendors (Les trouvailles gourmandes de Fanny, the corn-only stall at the south end that’s the only place I buy fresh corn, a great organic farmer from Freilighsburg who’s there only on Wednesdays, etc.). Plus you have one of the province’s best SAQs just across the street.
DeWolf 23:12 on 2023-08-29 Permalink
I live very close to the Jean-Talon market and I go there almost every day to buy groceries. There’s an enormous amount of space so it can handle some new concepts without ruining the market as an actual place to buy groceries. Most importantly, it’s much better now than it was a few years ago before the crisis (which had to do with corrupt management conspiring with corrupt stall owners) and you had too many stalls selling subpar produce at marked up prices.
Orr 13:03 on 2023-08-31 Permalink
We appreciate that this year Marché Jean Talon restored the bicycle parking at the south-east entrance that was ignored, then destroyed, then forgotten that it ever existed, and is now restored this year, along with some seating there. Nice!
I note that the fresh corn is dropping in price, but tends to be a bit over-ripe for my tastes to be eaten fresh. But with a corn kernel slicer (a miracle tool by Oxo) the kernels can be removed and are in fact great in salads, etc. Anyhow, it is variable day to day how ripe the cobs are, but my tip is to not take the biggest cobs.
carswell 18:52 on 2023-08-31 Permalink
@Orr Candide’s chef/owner John Winter-Russell told me his way of dealing with the super-sweetness of local corn — which has to do with variety, not ripeness, btw — is to let it sit in the fridge for a day or two, during which time some of the sugar converts into starch. Also, as mentioned above, the corn-only vendor at the south end of Atwater market sells less-than-saccharine varieties from their farm between mid-July and late August/early September; they were there this afternoon, but the prized yellow ears are finished for the season.