Eaton’s 9th floor to reopen
CBC has some photos and video of the restoration of Eaton’s 9th floor, set to reopen next month. La Presse also has some nice photos.
CBC has some photos and video of the restoration of Eaton’s 9th floor, set to reopen next month. La Presse also has some nice photos.
Poutine Pundit 10:45 on 2024-04-20 Permalink
Wait, what?
The dining room will be open only for rentals and dining will take place in some previously unused hallway with low ceilings and a nice wooden floor? Isn’t 95% of the point of going there to dine in the magnificent art deco dining room rather than in a hallway? The dining room is “too large to operate as a modern restaurant”? What does that mean?
steph 11:29 on 2024-04-20 Permalink
@poutine.
it means you can’t have dinner in the dining hall. The restoration has the space repurposed. I’m also disappointed (not that I’d pay to dine there either).
Ian 15:15 on 2024-04-20 Permalink
So then… what is even the point?
Uatu 15:31 on 2024-04-20 Permalink
Might as well just eat at the time out market or le Cathcart. It’s a lot better ambiance than a hallway outside of a room you’re not allowed in lol
Robert H 16:01 on 2024-04-20 Permalink
Wow, it looks just splendid. My boomer nostalgia nerve is triggered. It’s disappointing that the great hall won’t reopen as a restaurant available to all. Though the article notes that by the 1980s (when I first came to Montreal), the glory from its heyday had pretty much faded, I distinctly recall being very impressed by its then pastel coloured elegance; it looked like a great set for an Astaire-Rogers extravaganza. I also remember my delicious salmon with hollandaise sauce. That dining hall and the huge Eaton’s department store that housed it, were the type of place that was already disappearing from cities during my childhood. Used to be that you could find its equivalent in the great commercial palaces of most self-respecting major metropolises. Now they’re all gone, except for this glittering revived remnant. I look forward to seeing it again, and I hope it’s such a success that management reconsiders its decision to restrict la grande salle special events or rentals only.
Robert H 16:05 on 2024-04-20 Permalink
One day, Uatu, do you suppose young people might reminisce fondly about shopping mall food halls?
Ian 17:10 on 2024-04-20 Permalink
You joke but I ran into some old high school friends and we started waxing nostalgic about the places at the food court in the mall we hung out at in downtown Hamilton circa 1985
Uatu 17:49 on 2024-04-22 Permalink
Last Christmas season there were parties held at Le Cathcart with trendy young people dressed up waiting outside in line. I guess they might have good memories about eating with good looking people under the glass roof at night.