MEMORIES OF PICASSO
It shut 8 years ago, but nostalgia for diner lingers
In its heyday, Serre Picasso was a hopping, 24-hour greasy spoon in Notre-Dame-de-Grâce that cracked 150 cases of eggs a week, but the eatery closed its doors rather suddenly in February 2009 after a 30-year run as one of the most popular breakfast joints in Montreal’s west end.
Now, as crews work to clean up and renovate the long-abandoned diner on St-Jacques St., rumours of its resurrection abound, circulating among the many fans that remember lining up on Sunday morning for the restaurant’s cheap breakfast specials or gathering there in the wee hours after a long night of drinking and dancing.
However, the owner says it’s too early to say what the old Serre Picasso will become.
“We are preparing it for a restaurant,” said Peter Sergakis, a Montreal businessman who owns 45 restaurants and bars. “Either we are going to rent it or operate it ourselves. We haven’t decided on the concept.”
Sergakis, age 70, was in his early 30s and had about eight other restaurants when he moved Serre Picasso to St-Jacques St. from Montreal’s St-Henri neighbourhood in 1979. It was part of a chain named after the artist. He sold the business in 1995 and eventually evicted the tenant for failing to keep up on rent, he said. His effort to revive it a year later in 2010 never panned out and it has sat vacant since.
Nowadays, Montreal is saturated with breakfast joints, Sergakis explained, and the restaurant business “is not easy anymore.” He cited high taxes, rising overhead and a weakening economy as the principal catalysts behind eroding profit margins for restaurateurs.
Sergakis said the property was a Texaco gas station when he bought it, tore it down and built the building that today still serves as home to its basement strip club. After 37 years in business, Sergakis said he has no intention of closing Les Amazones as it is a “quiet place with no problems.”
Serre Picasso, highly recognizable by its solarium facade and fading yellow sign, has slowly fallen into disrepair over the last eight years, but area residents still feel nostalgic when they look back on days gone by.
“I remember, after spending the evening dancing, going there at three o’clock in the morning to eat,” said Mike White, 61, who was born and raised in N.D.G.
“When the bars closed, the place was jumping. It was jammed with people laughing, still under the weather, I suppose, from dancing and drinking. We’d go there, eat a late meal and go home at sunrise.”
White said he remembers back to the early ’90s when the bouncers from the bar next door, PJ’s Pub, would be brought in at the end of their shift to keep an eye on Serre Picasso’s sometimes rowdy, after-hours crowd. They’d earn a few extra bucks, he said, making “sure everybody stayed in line.”
While there are those who remember its wilder side, there were also those who made a family tradition out of the place. Mark Lidbetter grew up in N.D.G. and, even though he moved to Pointe-Claire many years ago, he’d still regularly dine at the old restaurant whenever he visited his father.
“It was a go-to place for breakfast, lunch and supper,” said Lidbetter, 61, who particularly enjoyed the eclectic menu’s wide range of choices. “Even if you went with a group of 10 people, everybody could find something they wanted.”
Lidbetter remembers eating at Serre Picasso in its earliest days and, looking back, he said it was always busy no matter the time of day. On Sunday mornings, he added, there were always lineups out front because the breakfast specials were “the best deal in town back then.”
Nick Patulli, 69, said Serre Picasso was much different during the day than at night. He was a regular customer for all three decades that the restaurant was open, he said, as he was part of a group of guys that met there every day for breakfast and lunch to tell jokes, chat and people watch.
“We started off with about 10 guys and we ended up being about 30 guys that used to meet every single day at Picasso’s,” recounted Patulli, noting the posse grew as regulars got to know each other over the years. He said he has a lot of good memories of those days as they were full of good laughs with good friends.
The group slowly dismantled once it was gone, but Patulli still laughs as he tells stories of hanging out with the guys at Serre Picasso.
“We were there from the day that it opened to the day that it closed.”
I remember, after spending the evening dancing, going there at three o’clock in the morning to eat.