[title]
Think of it as a bookstore for food.
Ton Quartier (907 boulevard Rosemont) is a new grocery store project in Montreal to sip coffee, talk, and browse.
Don't let the sleek and spartan look of it fool you: Each item's hand-picked to promote local businesses and sustainable agriculture, as one of this local market and café's missions is to humanize the customer experience (their words).
If this is the first time you're hearing about Ton Quartier, you'll be hearing about it again soon. Since opening its first location in Rosemont, two more locations are already planned for the 2021, starting in the spring in Pointe-Saint-Charles and followed by an opening downtown in the winter of 2021.
View this post on Instagram
The idea behind Ton Quartier, started in 2019 but made reality by COVID in 2020, is to create both a market and a neighborhood café where people can stock up, coffee in hand, on dishes made from local ingredients prepared by local chefs.
By creating Ton Quartier, we didn't just want to be a neighborhood market... We wanted to create a social place
Behind the project, a well-seasoned team in the Montreal's gastronomic and cultural world with names from spots like L'Art Des Vivres, Palco, and Forëna (yes, the spa) headline the conceptualization, curation and execution of the project. As for the market and café's ready-to-eat dishes and other homemade goods, it's done by team of four chefs who, in Ton Quartier's central kitchen, never skip a beat.
View this post on Instagram
“By creating Ton Quartier, we didn't just want to be a neighborhood market. We wanted to create a social place where people would come to do some shopping, buy their supper, pastries or a simple coffee, while chatting with us," co-founder Charles-Étienne told Time Out Montreal. That's why a café component is always integrated into each market, and that the setup of an online grocery system isn't their objective, but a short-term stopgap.
Ultimately, the idea is for every neighbourhood to have a Ton Quartier location. While all the markets will have the same core with several flagship products that are available in all branches, Charles-Étienne wants the place to be imbued with the best of the neighborhood. "For our first branch in Rosemont, we are currently working with Pascal le Boucher, as well as a few other (immediately local) businesses..."
As for the experience? Sized somewhere between 300 and 500 square feet, Ton Quartier isn't just hyper-local, but hyper-focused with selections of meats, read-to-eat meals, sauces, pastries, wines, seafood, apertif gear, preserves, vegetarian options, and more.
The latest from Time Out Montréal
- Old Montreal's free winter village of sculptures, lights and a giant igloo opens today
- Montreal's Martha Wainwright is playing an online, three-city Christmas concert this Sunday
- A last-minute farmers Christmas market is opening in Montreal this Saturday
- Get all the holiday feels going by watching Les Grands Ballets Canadiens de Montréal's Nutcracker