In Montreal, the journalist Louis-Philippe Messier is mainly on the run, with his office in his backpack, looking for fascinating topics and people. He speaks to everyone and is interested in all areas of life in this city chronicle.
Remember how much good draft beer cost in 1998? In 1998, to celebrate its 25th anniversary, a bar on Avenue du Mont-Royal will give back its clientele by offering its original prices… well, almost.
The cost of living has increased so much since the opening of Bily Kun, a Czech-inspired bar (Bily Kun means white horse in Czech), that the best gift the venue could give its customers was to go back to its original prices.
From 11pm to 1am on Saturday, March 25, a pint of craft beer is $4.75 (was $8-10) and a shooter is $2.75 (was $4.75).
Photo Pierre Paul Poulin
Eugénie Florant-Lacaille, the owner’s daughter, has worked here since she was 18 and poses in front of a glass of the Czech drink Becherovka, imported by the bar.
“The original idea was to offer the 1998 price, but it was a little too low, it would have cost more than $4 for a beer or $2.50 for a shooter,” laughs manager Pascal Lessard.
“We decided on the compromise and stated the ‘yesterday’s price’ because it will be around the level of the mid-2000s,” adds the employee who has been working here for 20 years.
This 1998 party marks the month before the exact anniversary of the bar’s opening, April 25th.
“It falls on a Tuesday and we celebrate it on the same day. We know we’re going to be full! »
Since its inception, the Bily Kun has been popular and respected by people in the field. This is the bar where people from the restaurant world spend their free evenings.
Photo Pierre Paul Poulin
The seven stuffed ostrich heads became the emblem of the Bily Kun.
A bar fully bar
Take a look at the Bily-Kun building: its facade is adorned with a rectangular concrete sign with an X formed of two sticks and four balls – the symbol of billiards.
“Since its construction in the late 19th century, the building has housed a drinking house and has always remained so,” says Pascal.
For a long time the tavern was called Chez Soi. A hundred years later, the dirty place played video lottery under another name.
Bily Kun’s founder, Fabien Lacaille, stripped away successive layers of modernizing ugliness to reveal the centuries-old bar’s original brick and woodwork.
To decorate the wall opposite the bar, decorator Bruno Braën had the idea of using stuffed ostrich heads, which have become a symbol of the place.