On Monday evening just after sunset, the parking lot of a family-run canteen brimmed with locals hoping to catch a glimpse of a nine-metre neon man lighting up the skyline of Granby, Que.
Chez Ben on s’bour la bédaine, the local shop whose name roughly translates to “we stuff our bellies at Ben’s,” has become synonymous with the retro sign of a man eating a hotdog.
Fitted with a cowboy hat, tray of food and neon red apron stretched over its well-rounded midsection, the sign was installed in 1974 to help direct people to the establishment in Quebec’s Eastern Townships.
But last summer, co-owner Jimmy Dubé took to social media asking for help.
After 20 years of no repairs, the sign’s lights had to be turned off for maintenance — it needed an expert’s services.
His post blew up, and he was flooded with support.
“We didn’t really think that we will receive that much love,” said Dubé. “We had people asking everywhere about when is [it] going to be back. We said, ‘OK, when we’re going to be ready, we’re going to throw a party.'”
He never expected more than 1,000 people to show up.
“It was pretty awesome to see everyone gathering and have a countdown to see Ben blowing up the street again,” said Dubé.
Repairing ’emblem of Granby’ cost $40K
Juliette Pitre, the canteen’s ice cream manager, says she’s never seen so many people come on one night.
“It warms your heart,” said Pitre.
“We received so much support. Ever since that first post online we received around a million views, people saw it in the U.S., people who just wanted to come help us repair it.”
She says the sign for the canteen, which sells poutine, hot dogs, hamburgers and ice cream, is the talk of the town and can be seen by everyone on the street.
“We of course couldn’t abandon this emblem of Granby, and of course our emblem which is known by everyone,” said Pitre.
Breakaway7:36Iconic casse-croute Chez Ben on s’bour la bédaine sign gets a makeover
The animated neon sign that stands tall in front of the restaurant got a much needed revamp. For more on maintaining the 1974 Granby landmark, Alison speaks with co-owner of Chez Ben on s’bour la bédaine, Jimmy Dubé.
Enseignes Dominion, a company based out of Montreal, took on the restoration project which cost Chez Ben $40,000.
At first Dubé wasn’t sure they would even be able to fix the relic, as it needed repairs or replacements of its wiring, lights and paint all done on site.
From start to finish, he said it took about a year for all the repairs to be completed.
Last time lights were off was ’98 ice storm, says owner
The sign is such a fixture on Granby’s main street that Dubé says having to turn its lights off for three weeks during the repair process was significant. The lights hadn’t been out since the 1998 ice storm.
His grandfather was the one who installed it as a guiding light for customers after the shop changed locations.
“He had the struggle to have the customer back because they couldn’t see him, they were so used to seeing it on the right side of the street. So he decided to say, OK, [either] I’m closing it or I’m putting everything in it and I’m doing this big neon sign board outside,” said Dubé.
“And then things for the business went up and for the past 20 years or so the Chez Ben sign board became itself an icon in Granby.”