Timeline

At the time (1965), the National Capital Commission was planning to create a Mile of History on Sussex Drive and they started to acquire all the buildings and to restore them. They planned to rent the ground floor premises to stores and restaurants. Le Hibou became their first coffee house tenant.

The new site was at 521 Sussex Drive, a block and a half from Rideau Street and a block from the market. It was a heritage building with large glass windows and a massive, ornate wooden door. The place was a dream come true. It was almost three times the size of 248 Bank Street, with a 15-foot high ceiling that still had the original stamped tin tile. There were two steel posts in the large main room, but nothing to hinder the view of the stage. Almost predestined for Le Hibou there were large H’s inscribed on the tile floor. (It had been the home of the Hobby House.) In the back there was a good size room, ideal for a kitchen with steep stairs leading to a mezzanine above, which in turn divided into two spaces, one ideal for a performers’ room, and the other for the film projector and the stage lighting control.

There were drawbacks for us since the market at the time had quite a sordid reputation with prostitutes and their clients, and I wondered if that would be a deterrent. The rent certainly was not, however. At $275 a month, it was most reasonable, with the understanding that all costs for renovation on the inside had to be borne by Le Hibou. And of course Le Hibou was quite prepared to do that.

The new location at 248 Bank St. looked promising. One could accommodate 60 to 70 people with tables and chairs, well over 100 people with no tables, which we did when we had plays. Of course, I kept the red and white checked tablecloths, the large fat straw covered Chianti bottles and candles even though they would drip on the tablecloths and make a mess, but everybody loved them, including me. I required a stage quickly as I had already booked Tom Kines for the opening week.

Luckily a long time friend and Le Hibou member Jean Guy Boutin came to the rescue and put a stage together, which of course we painted black. It had a long life as we moved it to 521 Sussex later. Lights were pretty rudimentary—two 150 watt flood lights on a clamp with an on and off switch. We used stitched together black felt and nailed it to a 1 x 2 wood frame which provided a back curtain. There was a small glass brick wall in the main room, which I kept for a while but had to remove later so people could see the stage more easily. The floor was concrete, perfect for sound and security. At about that time (1961) Harvey Glatt, owner of Treble Clef Records, approached George and I about becoming a partner.

I located a second floor apartment close to the university at 544 Rideau Street, right above Dr. Dupont’s chiropractic business and residence.  Now that we had a location, we only needed a name.  After several long discussions and many coffees, someone, I can’t remember who, came up with “Le Hibou” (The Owl).  Since we were to open only in the evening, the name seemed perfect.  So in October 1960 Café Le Hibou Coffee House was born.

We had a place, but we still needed furniture, a menu, and a membership card.  A designer friend, Frank Mayrs from Exhibition Canada (a now-defunct federal department that used to set up exhibits all over the world) designed the owl logo for the Le Hibou membership card.  We decided to charge $1 per membership with the hope that it would cover the rent and other expenses.  As George and I were the only ones with cars, we did the rounds of used furniture stores.  Al’s Used Furniture in the market had the best deal, and I picked up chairs for about 50 cents to $1, and tables from $2 to $5.  Taking the cue from my artist friends, we painted all the walls off-white. That was the “in” colour for artists then.

The piece de resistance was a cone-shaped aluminum espresso maker I picked up in Little Italy on Preston Street.  The espresso was served in a demitasse.  For the cappuccino, we would heat the milk to boiling point on the stove, froth it with a wire whip, add it to the espresso, and top it with whipped cream with a sprinkle of chocolate or cinnamon.  It was amazing how fast we could produce espressos and cappuccinos on that little stove in the kitchen on Rideau Street.  For food, we offered a variety of cheeses, ham on crusty buns, and smoked meat sandwiches on Rideau Bakery rye bread.

On the weekend a student friend of Andre’s, Paul Mostovac, would bake fabulous buttery European cakes on large trays: mocha, chocolate, hazelnut or black forest, all of which disappeared very quickly.  In the front rooms, with visions of a romantic Paris which I had not yet visited, I covered the tables with white and red chequered tablecloths, and placed on each one a straw-covered fat Chianti bottle topped with a candle—Paris on the Rideau.  The walls, however, did not stay pristine white very long as Nikki Patterson, a very talented artist, soon drew beautiful figures on all of them.