Brownstein: Former Moishes owner back in the resto game — at Royalmount

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At present, all that exists in this spot in the Royalmount complex is but a marble counter and a few stools with a couple of high-end grills and a fridge behind them.

The ubiquitous construction teams surrounding the space are racing feverishly to put the finishing touches on the ginormous mall’s boutiques and state-of-the-art food hall before the official opening Sept. 5.

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This particular food space will soon sport a sign heralding the arrival of Prime Bar à Boeuf, specializing in steak-frites and burgers to satisfy the cravings of visitors checking out the Royalmount mall’s myriad shops — from Canada Goose and Sephora to Louis Vuitton and Tiffany & Co. The spot is but a bracelet’s toss away from the Swarovski jewelry boutique.

Sitting on a stool at the counter is Lenny Lighter, maintaining a surprisingly serene presence in the midst of the construction clamour around him.

“It doesn’t require much of an imagination to envision what kind of complex this will be,” Lighter marvels. “There will be nothing quite like this anywhere.”

After a few particularly challenging years, Lighter, the former owner of Moishes, is back in the resto biz and couldn’t be more delighted. He has partnered with veteran Montreal restaurateur Jonathan Dresner.

There will be 900 seats in the food hall, with counters offering visitors an array of seafood, pasta and alluring fare. Customers can sit anywhere in the hall, order through the tables’ QR codes and have their food and bills brought to them by servers working for the hall.

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The Prime Bar à Boeuf will be the sole purveyor on the steak-frites/burger front and will be open daily from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Alcohol will be available as will — Lighter is proud to note — specialty milkshakes.

And count on Lighter to be front and centre much of the time. The key to the success of Moishes when he was running it on the Main was Lighter being on hand to greet customers. He understood the hospitality angle better than most.

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“So people are asking me why a 71-and-a-half year-old man would want to get back into the restaurant grind once again?”

A smiling Lighter is quick to answer with a one-word slang acronym not normally associated with a 71-and-a-half year-old: “FOMO!”

As most everyone under the age of 71-and-a-half knows, the acronym stands for “fear of missing out.”

“I just had this fear of missing out on something so unique and fascinating that I just couldn’t resist the opportunity to get involved once again in the only business I’ve known all my life,” says Lighter, who will be hiring 15 people to operate the spot.

“When I found out what they were doing at Royalmount, I just felt I had to be there. To me this is an amazing project, both Royalmount as a whole and the food hall. What this is going to do for the city will be unbelievable. And I doubt there is a food hall on the planet quite like this one.”

No question that accessing the location by car could be problematic, to say the least. But Lighter, like others behind the project, point out that métro access will be easier, with a bridge connecting a nearby station to the site.

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“I really think this is going to be Ground Zero in Montreal for a long time to come,” Lighter says. “Most people focus on the high-end stores, but that represents only a portion of what the complex has to offer. It is also a lifestyle centre. There will be theatres. There will be an abundance of greenery. Eventually, it will be like a self-contained, very eco-friendly city.”

Lighter should be able to handle the workload. This septuagenarian has the stamina of many half his age, thanks to years  of marathon cycling and workouts.

Lighter sold Moishes — founded in 1938 by his father — and its wholesale food business in 2018 to the Sportscene group (now called Grandio), also the owner of the La Cage sports-bar chain. After the building housing Moishes on St-Laurent Blvd. was sold, the company, which would later acquire the Gibby’s steakhouses in Old Montreal and St-Sauveur, announced it would open a new Moishes near Square Victoria, which it did in June 2023.

Lighter stayed on as a consultant with Sportscene until his contract expired, thus allowing him to move on to a gig in 2022 with Costas Spiliadis, creator of the Milos Greek-resto empire. Lighter became executive vice-president of the Milos group, with its numerous locations around the world. The job had an entirely different dimension for Lighter as he was to spend half his time jetting around the planet, checking out the various Milos sites.

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But this alignment of two of the city’s most renowned restaurant forces was not to last long, ending over a year ago.

Tragedy struck Lighter’s family about 18 months ago, with the passing of his daughter Lauren. He avoided the spotlight for the next year, providing support instead to Lauren’s friends, sister Melani and brother Shane on their Lighter Fund at the Douglas Mental Health Mobile Outreach Program in Lauren’s memory.

“We’re doing the best we can under the circumstances,” Lighter says. “Knowing Lauren, she would want us to get on with life, and that’s what we’re trying to do.”

bbrownstein@postmedia.com

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