Construction work forces Au Petit Café to close down

“Nobody really liked to close,” said Corry Olsthhoorn, president of the West Island Health Support Foundation, which runs the café.

Au Petit Café will close on Friday, as it usually does for the winter. But it will not reopen for the next season. Its location right under the bridge in Ste. Anne de Bellevue means that the work will eliminate parking spaces for the restaurant and cause too many disturbances for the clients. It won’t be able to resume its activities as long as the work goes on. Current estimations for the work say it will last up to two years but that could change.

The café has about 120 volunteers and donates $24,000 of profits each year to NOVA West Island, a non-profit healthcare organization formerly known as VON.

“We’ll have to be a little more careful,” said Jane Lumsden, executive director of NOVA West Island.

She’s relying on the fundraising events that the West Island Health Support Foundation will set up to try to make up for the loss of earnings, and on NOVA’s own fundraisings, such as the golf tournament they organize annually. While Au Petit Café is not only a source of revenue for NOVA West Island, it is an excellent way to promote their activities.

“A lot of people associate the café with us,” said Lumsden. “It makes it very community-visible.”

Au Petit Café benefits from its attractive location. It is run in a house built in 1798 by the descendents of Simon Fraser and was classified as a monument and historical site in 1961. The building is now owned by Heritage Canada, and rented to the West Island Health Support Foundation. The café has been occupying the space for 61 years but nobody can be sure when things will be back to normal.

“We are concerned that we’ll keep the volunteers,” Olsthhoorn said.

She fears that an interruption of up to two years will drive them away and she will be actively recruiting volunteers to avoid that.

In spite of all the uncertainty concerning the future of Au Petit Café, there still is the prospect of a more attractive and revamped neighborhood for the stores located on Ste. Anne Street.

“I’m just looking forward to the revitalization,” Lumsden said.