Charcuterie Noël is a Montreal-North staple, serving up a slice of Italy for the past 45 years.
But on Oct. 4th, the family-owned European grocery store will be closing their doors — the same day it opened in 1979 — due to a significant drop in revenue after the pandemic.
Inflation and fierce competition is to blame with grocery store chains, big box stores, and even other retailers now in on the food market.
Owner Roberto Natale has been working long shifts everyday to reduce costs, but it’s a grueling pace that can’t be kept up forever.
“When people started coming out and the inflation started going up and the prices started going up,” said Natale. “That’s when it really affected us because people started comparing prices.”
“They see the shop here as a more expensive place than other places.”
“That’s what I’m kind of upset about,” said Louis Lefebvre, customer. “It’s because we don’t have much choice anymore to go to the big supermarkets.”
“Sometimes they have like lower prices, but the quality isn’t really there either.”
Natale describes himself as a “hands on” business owner.
He was ten when he started helping around the store — passing the mop and broom at first, slowly learning about each department.
With his well-honed eye for detail, Natale was carefully displaying his merchandise.
“It was a nice run,” he said. “We’ve done a lot.”
“And because you’re in the daily routine, you don’t stop and say, How much did I do? How many years have passed?”
“Having a grocery store here was like kind of ideal,” said Lefebvre. “Because it’s like in, in the center of everything here.”
Natale’s ideas for the future are percolating. At first he was set on selling but now he is considering renting the space.
“We want a new concept and I repeat to answer the need of the new community to community that’s coming along,” he explained. “So you have to change and to do different.”
But what’s up Next up for Natale is simply…a break.
“You can rest a day, you can rest two days,” he said. “But then it’s not me, I gotta move.”
“Projection that in the month of January,” he added. “I’ll be back on the market.”