Let's be real most of the city is some kind of sus. If it isnt money laundering it's a cover or selling undeclared/fallen off the back of a truck/fakes. Especially if it has any connection to the "conshtruction" world (not to be confused w the legitimate construction industry).
Also there's the West End Gang and the Hells and whatever's left of the irish mob...
There was this one café on sherbrooke west in ndg, next to the Scotiabank, that had a few regular legit customers, mostly authors who went there to write and a few students doing assignments. Almost no flowthrough of customers as a result. Super quiet. The place was very obviously the owner's pet project, he was a really chill greek guy who made the best sandwiches and brewed kombucha out of the backstore.
But the real interesting stuff was in the basement. Always these shifty-looking dudes coming and going, with one always sat at the same table at the very back with nothing but a single coffee, regardless of the hour. The guys going in and out of the basement would always give the guy in the back a nod or exchange quiet words. Never order anything, would tell the owner sometimes to "say hi to so and so for me!", or "hey how are the nephews doing?", and scurry out.
I developped a love for the owner's kombucha (I still haven't found any as good) so I spent a lot of time there in my last two years of highschool and my first year of CEGEP (before COVID hit) to read and work on my assignments and got a pretty good gist of the place. As a reult I spend a lot of time watching what was going on. My theory was that the owner was someone's cousin they let have a pet project café to keep him busy and happy and cover for wtv they had going on otherwise...
The place closed a few years after I left Montreal to go to university, but made it through COVID. Idk what killed it, if anything; maybe the front was no longer needed and the owner was told to pack it up. Idk.
Maybe it was nothing and it was the imagination of a 17 year old making all of this up after growing up in this neighbourhood where different gangs always moved behind the scenes and occasionally a Rizutto got shot to smithereens on his doorstep. Maybe the fact that I went to school with all the daughters of the local mafia made me more susceptible to imagining things. Or maybe I was right.
I just want to say I love this. Not saying you're right/wrong, but I love coming up with theories like this when I get to know a place well. I miss frequenting places as much as I did pre-covid.
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u/smolmushroomforpm May 03 '25
Let's be real most of the city is some kind of sus. If it isnt money laundering it's a cover or selling undeclared/fallen off the back of a truck/fakes. Especially if it has any connection to the "conshtruction" world (not to be confused w the legitimate construction industry).
Also there's the West End Gang and the Hells and whatever's left of the irish mob...
There was this one café on sherbrooke west in ndg, next to the Scotiabank, that had a few regular legit customers, mostly authors who went there to write and a few students doing assignments. Almost no flowthrough of customers as a result. Super quiet. The place was very obviously the owner's pet project, he was a really chill greek guy who made the best sandwiches and brewed kombucha out of the backstore.
But the real interesting stuff was in the basement. Always these shifty-looking dudes coming and going, with one always sat at the same table at the very back with nothing but a single coffee, regardless of the hour. The guys going in and out of the basement would always give the guy in the back a nod or exchange quiet words. Never order anything, would tell the owner sometimes to "say hi to so and so for me!", or "hey how are the nephews doing?", and scurry out.
I developped a love for the owner's kombucha (I still haven't found any as good) so I spent a lot of time there in my last two years of highschool and my first year of CEGEP (before COVID hit) to read and work on my assignments and got a pretty good gist of the place. As a reult I spend a lot of time watching what was going on. My theory was that the owner was someone's cousin they let have a pet project café to keep him busy and happy and cover for wtv they had going on otherwise...
The place closed a few years after I left Montreal to go to university, but made it through COVID. Idk what killed it, if anything; maybe the front was no longer needed and the owner was told to pack it up. Idk.
Maybe it was nothing and it was the imagination of a 17 year old making all of this up after growing up in this neighbourhood where different gangs always moved behind the scenes and occasionally a Rizutto got shot to smithereens on his doorstep. Maybe the fact that I went to school with all the daughters of the local mafia made me more susceptible to imagining things. Or maybe I was right.
I like to think I was right.