'Mind blowing': Restaurant owners worry scheduled roadwork will dampen much-needed terrace season income

Montreal -

It's still a little chilly to sit for a bite or a drink on a Montreal terrace, but planned roadwork has some restaurant owners in the Southwest borough worried their patio season is already over.

After two and a half years of COVID-19 restrictions, things were just starting feel like normal at the Burgundy Lion on Notre Dame St. But then, news came which the owners could hardly believe.

“It’s mind blowing,” said Paul Desbaillets, the bar’s owner, describing his feelings after learning the borough plans to rip up the road between Vinet St. and Atwater Ave.

The work is expected to last 12 weeks, and that means terraces won’t be able to open normally as the warm weather arrives

"Everybody in Montreal knows that the terrace season for restaurants and bars is such an important piece of its income,” he said.

The city says the work can’t wait. Officials told CTV the pipe which runs under the road supplies drinking water for the area, and it’s almost 100 years old.

Desbaillets fears the work will keep people away from the neighborhood.

“We all know, as Montrealers, there’s nothing more uncomfortable than looking at a street and seeing it all torn up,” he said. “You start to feel like ‘maybe I just won’t go to that neighbourhood,’ so it doesn’t just affect us with our terrace, it also affects all the local merchants.”