🍦🌷 Spring Fever, Secret Raves, Crab Feasts, And AI Music Battles

Bonjour-hi to you today mon ami / amie,

Spring is here, allegedly. The city is peeling off its winter layers like a snake with seasonal affective disorder, and we’re all pretending that 12°C is “terrasse weather” because, frankly, we’ve earned it. Bixis are back (for reals this time), the potholes have multiplied, and somewhere, a man in shorts is already regretting his optimism.

In this week’s issue…

• City News: Voting kicks off, late-night metros return, and Dawson students shovel manure presumably for a good reason.

• Feel Good: Tree-planting car sales and a charity run that doubles as cardio and community.

• Food: Tacos, squid ink pasta, maple whiskey flights, and a rhubarb saison brewing takeover.

• Events: Poetry slams, AI beat battles, crab feasts, and the most chaotic bingo night in town.

And one, very special announcement at the end of this issue.

CITY NEWS

🏙️ What's Happening Around Town

Federal Elections Are Coming: Advance voting began last weekend. And yes, there will be massive lineups, but also stickers. Find your riding, plan your vote, and maybe even bring a friend who hasn’t updated their address since 2019. That’ll be fun.

STM goes nocturnal: Starting Friday, metros will run till 2:30AM on weekends. Finally, no more panicked power-walks to the station with poutine in hand.

Manure for Mother Earth: Dawson College students celebrated Earth Day by replacing their front lawn's "biological desert" (also known as grass) with wildflowers, shovelling manure with the same enthusiasm they normally reserve for avoiding homework. The CEGEP, now boasting a platinum sustainability rating while the rest of us struggle to remember which bin is for paper versus plastic, has already cut water consumption in half and composts a weekly tonne of what we can only assume is cafeteria food.

FEEL GOOD

💗 Stories That Make Me Fall In Like With This City

1. 🌳 Buy a Car, Plant a Tree (Again!)

   HGreg has brought back its “Buy a Car, Plant a Tree” initiative for the ninth year in a row. In partnership with Tree Canada, every vehicle sold results in a tree planted. The project has helped reforest parts of Quebec and other provinces — and frankly, it's the kind of greenwashing we can get behind.

2. 🏃‍♀️ Running with Heart

   The 21K de Montréal Charity Challenge returns April 26 at Parc Jean-Drapeau. Choose between 1K, 5K, 10K, or 21K distances and run (or walk) to support the Montreal General Hospital Foundation. It’s part cardio, part community spirit, and part excuse to wear neon shorts before June. If you go I’ll go we’ll hyperventaliate, together. Nothing builds community quite like collective suffering in moisture-wicking fabrics.

NON-PROFIT

🤲 A Cause Just Cause

Women’s Centre of Montréal: Support That Actually Supports

Located in Parc-Extension, this nonprofit offers personal support, employment help, and education programs for women of all backgrounds. Their new spring series includes a workshop on navigating job fairs and developing soft skills.

If you've ever been told to “just network more” and then immediately wanted to evaporate — this is a space for real guidance.

FOOD

🍽️ Food & Drink Buzz

Don Tamal (Rosemont). Tamales. Ribs. Congris. Pizza. Smoothies. This isn’t a typo-riddled Uber Eats menu — it’s a perfectly chaotic, delicious Cuban kitchen tucked into Montreal. Don Tamal serves food that tastes like someone’s abuela kicked open the doors of a corner joint and said, “Let’s feed everyone, but also let’s get weird with it.” You’ll find tamales so soft they require emotional processing, fried ribs that should come with a support group

Central Kitchen BP (St-Léonard). Central Kitchen BP is the kind of catering service that makes you wonder why all your past parties felt like sad office potlucks with questionable hummus. Specializing in Latin American-inspired dishes, they serve gourmet lunch boxes that somehow make a team meeting tolerable, cocktail bites that taste like they belong on a yacht (but not in a pretentious way), and private chef experiences that may ruin you for home cooking forever. Add a customizable buffet, private venue, and general “wow, this is actually good”

Got more? Reply to this email and tell us!

BOROUGHS

🧭 NEIGHBOURHOOD SPOTLIGHT

📍 Parc-Extension

What used to be a pass-through zone (Don’t hurt me, I use to live near Parc Jarry) is now slowly becoming a culture magnet — especially with the new Mile End brews spilling over.

Le Relais Boréale is what happens when a microbrewery, a boutique (with the budget of a National alcohol brand, ahem) and a Nordic survival fantasy walk into a bar and decide to stay for dinner. It’s part taproom, part gift shop, and part aspirational lifestyle — the kind where you suddenly want to grow a beard, buy a wool sweater, and start saying words like “terroir” unironically.

Pushap Sweets still wins the city’s best chole bhature for under $10. Change my mind.

Local artists are reviving alleys with collaborative murals backed by MU Montréal.

EVENTS

🎟️🎪 Weekend Plans That Don't Suck

THURSDAY (April 24)

FRIDAY (April 25)

SATURDAY (April 26)

SUNDAY (April 27)

LIVE MUSIC

🎶 Music & Nightlife

For those still possessing the energy for after-dark activities:

• Colin James Trio Salle Désilets | 🗓️ Thursday, April 24

  Canadian blues-rock legend Colin James brings his trio for an intimate performance.

•  Martha Wainwright Outremont Theatre | 🗓️ Friday, April 25

  Celebrating the 20th anniversary of her debut album with a special concert.

• The Chameleons with Twin Tribes Société des Arts Technologiques (SAT) | 🗓️ Tuesday, April 29

  A night of post-punk and darkwave music featuring two acclaimed bands.

• 🌩️ Oasis After Dark (New City Gas):

  Real-time weather data controls laser projections. Yes, really. Details

• 🎧 Secret Rave Series:

  DM @mtlunderground for location drop (last time it was a textile factory by the Lachine Rapids).

• 🎤 Françouvertes Semi-Finals:

  • Friday @ Café Cléopatra: Les Désaxés vs Élodie Tremblay

  • Saturday @ Barfly: 514Nord vs Les Insulaires

    Event Info

ANNOUNCEMENTS

🧍And Now For Those Who’ve Read To Teh End...

What a week! For the three of you studious readers who made it all the way to this literary basement where hope goes to nap and typos thrive unchecked ("teh end," really?) I have a special announcement.

Starting next issue, we'll be featuring portraits and interviews with the actual humans who populate this frozen, uniquely-scented, ahem, paradise we call home. We're calling it either "Humains de Montreal" or "Gens D'ici," depending on whether we want to sound pretentiously bilingual or just regularly pretentious (We love you Humans of New York). Actually, why don’t you tell us? Reply to this email and tell us which you prefer!

We'll be featuring people who've designed our most iconic buildings, scientists creating quantum computer black holes (which sounds terrifying but apparently is a good thing), and even that neighbourhood grandmother who somehow remembers your name despite your having only mumbled "bonjour" to her twice in three years.

So if you know someone worth featuring—someone extraordinary, someone ordinary but secretly extraordinary, or someone who once accidentally made eye contact with Leonard Cohen at Grumpy’s—drop us a line.

OUTRO

Well I had fun, did you? If you found something useful, please share it with someone you know. If you didn't, then share this with someone you detest. Your mother-in-law probably, or thesis advisor.

Until next week,

If you have any suggestions on stories to cover, new restaurants or events then please reply directly to this email. We read every. single. email. 🥲

So uhh..