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Letter: Revisiting the gastronomy – and prices – of 1967

Remembering Montreal's famous Beaver Club
beaver club menu
Montreal's Beaver Club menu as it was in 1967.

Editor:

I am going to take you back to when I lived in Montreal in the early 1960s.

There was a renowned restaurant, once considered the creme de la creme of formal haute gastronomy in Montreal, called The Beaver Club, in the Queen Elizabeth Hotel on Boulevard Rene Levesque. 

Such people as Queen Elizabeth II, Fidel Castro, Charles de Gaulle, John Lennon and Princess Grace, to mention a few, graced the Beaver Club.

The original Beaver Club was founded in February 1785 in Montreal with 119 members of whom explored the North West of Canada.  

These were predominantly English-speaking men who had gained control of the fur trade of Montreal.

One of the interesting things you were given to see if you were dinning there, is the fabulous menu: Bound together by a leather string, the cover is picture of a Beaver pelt.  It is made up of 12 pages, of which half is English and half is French, with a short story of the Beaver Club.

I had the privilege of dinning there in 1967, the year of Expo 67.  

Here are some of the dishes that you could buy: 

Fresh Tropical Fruit Cocktail $0 .75. Half a dozen Snails Bourguignonne $0 .50. Chateaubriand of Beef $14.50 or a Double Sirloin steak $12. 74. [Served for two persons with Bouquetiere of Vegetables] Half New Brunswick Lobster Parisienne $4.50 garnished with mixed vegetable salad, asparagus tips, tomato wedges, olive and hard boiled egg. Sauce mayonnaise. Half Grilled chicken Quebecoise $3.25

Now compare these prices to what we pay today.

This wonderful dinning place stayed with us until July 4, 2014 when it was closed.

David Brown

Sechelt