What Hope Pharmacie Esperanza? Doors are Closed without Notice
For the past week or two, the doors to the café Pharmacie Esperanza have been closed. There is no notice posted to explain matters. Though I have seen customers who have walked up St. Laurent Blvd or east along St. Viateur for 5 or 6 blocks only to face these closed doors, none of us seems to have a clue.
Now the rumour is circulating that they were closed due to either a code violation or a liquor permit restriction. These rumours tell that the back room was the target.
If anyone reading this knows the answer about this closure, knows whether it is temporary or permanent, please post a COMMENT here. Many music, performance and discussion events will be cancelled and rescheduled if Pharmacie Esperanza must stay closed for any longer period running into January, 2007. I hope they can re-open soon.
NOTE:
The restaurant-café Pharmacie Esperanza, 5490 St-Laurent, Montreal, is a layback venue where writers, artists, and musicians (outnumbered by laptop-toting McGill undergrads whose thirst for 'a unique underground caché' never sleeps) table hop or spread out on huge sofa-divans giving each other sideways glances . . .
On this blogger's world tour site the P. E. made it onto the list of a couple dozen highlights for tourists.
3 comments:
Today I spoke with the co-owner of Blue Monday, a vegetarian café in Verdun, regarding what I have heard tell about the sudden closure of Pharmacie Esperanza. She was so surprised that she told me it must have just been a normal shutdown over the holidays. I assured her that, without a notice posted on the entry-way, the locked doors surely meant more than simply a holiday break.
She will call a couple of her friends who are on staff at P.E. and will then email me the news (I hope).
All this shows what a surprise and shock it would be to lose this cherished venue and warm atmosphere for all of us.
Pharmacie Esperanza has finally posted a notice on their door. It states that the customer must remain patient, that they will be closed for the month of January but that the doors will re-open thereafter.
The cafe is changing hands. There are lots of rumours going around but I would be surprised if it remained closed beyond the end of April.
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