In Montreal, journalist Louis-Philippe Messier is mostly on the run, with his desk in his backpack, looking for fascinating topics and people. In this city chronicle he speaks to everyone and is interested in all areas of life.
On Thursday nights at 8 p.m., the line dancing class at a new bar dedicated to country culture and the only one of its kind in Montreal is bustling with people: Spaghetti Western.
Barely a month after opening, the Country Bar, a new addition to Plaza Saint-Hubert, is already almost full on weekends.
If the trend continues, there will soon be a line at his door.
Surprise: The audience is young, I would say on average in their early thirties, smiling and laughing.
We are the opposite of getting depressed at video poker machines.
There are practically two girls for every man.
At the online dance class from 7 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. on Thursday (and at the same time on Sunday) I counted 22 girls for 3 boys.
Louis Philippe Messier
“I volunteered to teach the line dancing classes when I heard a country bar was opening!” enthuses Kathy Maguire, 34, an acrobat and professional dancer originally from Beauce.
“This is the fourth week in a row I’ve been taking Kathy’s class and it reminds me of the bars back home in Acadia,” says Frédérick Bellavance, 36, a drawing professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Montreal and a native of Edmundston, New Brunswick.
“There are people who come here for ironic reasons, to laugh, but in the end even they are in a good mood and having fun,” adds Mr. Bellavance.
An aesthetic success
It’s a bar with neat aesthetics and warm lighting.
It’s hard not to smile at this decor, which its creator Anthoni Jodoin has been planning for three years.
Courtesy of Anthoni Jodoin
“Since the pandemic, when I find country or western-style items or decorations at flea markets or antique stores, I buy them in anticipation of the bar I want to open one day and store them in a warehouse,” says this 44-year-old year olds. old owner.
He tells me that he worked almost seven days a week for three months to build this new facility.
“I’m more of a designer who runs bars than a bartender who designs decorations,” he concludes.
Louis Philippe Messier
Mr. Jodoin also opened other very stylish establishments: the tiki bar Snowbird, located above the Spaghetti Western, the karaoke bar Taverne Cobra and the Irish pub One Punch Mickey’s (a reference to Brad Pitt’s character in the film Snatch).
The plate of spaghetti bolognese (because the bar has to live up to its name) is offered every day, costs $10 and is served to you by a bartender whose uniform is a denim Wrangler cowboy shirt.
Courtesy of Anthoni Jodoin
Why is this the only one?
Given the buzz generated by the spaghetti western, one might wonder why it is the first and only bar in Montreal to call itself a 100% country bar.
“Country culture has developed a lot outside of bars, more at festivals, on special evenings, in community halls, at flea markets,” explains Martin Lussier, professor at UQAM’s Department of Social and Public Communication and a specialist in popular music.
“With the Lasso Country Festival that brings great international artists to Jean-Drapeau Park, with the Saint-Tite Festival that wants to conquer new customers and now with this first bar that is exclusively a country bar presented, something seems to be happening,” comments Mr. Lussier.