Inside Montreal, journalist Louis-Philippe Messier travels mainly on the run, his office in his backpack, on the lookout for fascinating subjects and people. He speaks to everyone and is interested in all walks of life in this urban chronicle.
The restaurant on rue Ontario Antidote Bouffe Végane saddened its customers by announcing its imminent closure, but, for the businesswoman behind this address, it is a deliverance.
The future ex-restaurateur Élise Bellerose welcomes the visit of the Journal home with a smile.
“My oven just broke again and I have to cook the burger patties at home…that’s catering!” exclaims the one who founded Antidote in 2014. It will officially close on Sunday February 19.
What was initially a vegan deli gradually morphed into a restaurant that some will recall was for a time the target of anti-gentrification thugs.
“I must have done something bad against an oven in a past life because I’ve had bad oven karma for eight years!” adds the one who also runs her YouTube channel Mme Bellerose.
Bing! She receives a text. “My diver shocks me at the last minute. Who will have to replace him? Me, yeh! »
damn pandemic
A delayed victim of the pandemic, his restaurant had its first good year of profitability in 2019, before confinement and the change of habit where home delivery services ate away profits.
Business had been down for a while, and she had to take on more debt to survive the pandemic.
After a morbid year 2022 where she lost a niece and her best friend, comedian Marie-Lise Chouinard, she says she is burned.
“It was my restaurant or my sanity, and I chose my health. »
The meatballs she shapes in front of me will garnish her pear and balsamic burgers called Rock your pear (“one-third of sales”, according to a waitress) and served with an Excalibur-style knife stuck in the middle of the sandwich.
“I will reveal my recipes on my YouTube channel,” swears the one who tried unsuccessfully to sell her brand.
“I’m going to sell my equipment to another restorer, but Antidote is over. »
Will it be another vegetarian restaurant or a 79e pizzeria for Ontario Parkway?
“I am in discussion with a buyer, but too early to reveal who. »
Serenity
Mme Bellerose and her husband long for a long trip in a van in the South.
“Last Friday, I was bawling…eight years of my life to ashes!” But here I am at peace. I don’t worry about the future because my experience with Antidote has taught me that I can be good at anything. »
