Photo of the Moment: BENS Restaurant, Montreal

Posted by Mike Richard on May 1, 2008
Filed under: Food + Booze, Montreal, Photography, Sidelines

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BENS Restaurant in Montreal
© colros

Word from the photographer:

BENS, a classic Streamlined Moderne restaurant in Montreal, visited by many celebrities, is being sold and is in grave danger of being demolished. Sam Benatar, president of SIDEV, the developer, has declared, “It isn’t worth anything.” It is very ironic that there is now an exhibition at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts on Streamlined Design, with carefully preserved examples of Streamlined Modern design but a beautiful public example of it is about to be destroyed. Surely, BENS is as important to preserve as the objects in the museum exhibit.

A shame really. This place is a true Montreal landmark.

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Vagabondish editor, Mike Richard, lives in Rhode Island - a spit of land in the northeastern U.S. He is a professional web designer and travel junkie with an unhealthy addiction to backpacking, camping, hiking and seeing the world. He enjoys knit hats, small, declarative sentences and speaking in the third person.



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Comments

Scribetrotter
May 1st, 2008 - 1:08 pm

Montreal, where I used to live, is prone to destroying landmarks and killing its heritage. Years ago citizens were up in arms to preserve the historic Van Horne mansion - they lost. I find it hard to understand why Montreal would systematically commit architectural suicide, when tourism is such a top earner there.

When I was a student at McGill University, just up the street, Ben’s was one of the few places open all night (bar an hour around 5 a.m. when they did the cleaning) so we’d go there for coffee and smoked meat sandwiches at 2 in the morning, especially during exams… there are several generations of students who will miss Ben’s - it was part of our history.

That said, both food and service have been going downhill for years - too bad no one thought to fix it. It’s so much easier to destroy, isn’t it…


Louise Roderick
May 7th, 2008 - 5:17 pm

I lived in Montreal for 33 yrs. I’ll be visitng for the Formula 1 races next month and wanted to introduce some friends to BENS. So sad to hear that it has closed. How could anyone think it’s ok to destroy such a unique, one-of-a-kind place?! There’s nothing else like it. I used to go there after the bars closed in the 70’s and 80’s to socialize with all sorts of characters. So sad. Schwartz’s it will have to be.