Unable to Leapfrog the Competition, Grenouille Shuts it Down in the Plateau

A few days after the announcement of Le Chasseur's shutter in HoMa, Plateau bistro Grenouille took to Facebook yesterday to drop this bombshell.

Dear friends and customers,

We regret to announce that Grenouille closed its doors today. We wish to thank you one last time for coming to visit us since our opening. Thank you very much for sharing your good spirits and laughter with us.

We wish you a wonderful 2015.

The Mont-Royal Est restaurant's owners were ostensibly Marie-Claude Savard, a media personality and host of Salut, Bonjour!, Thibault Le Nedic, Jacques Dehouck and Mélanie Holder, whose brothers own Holder and Brasserie Bernard. The latter and Denis Holder are the only principals listed in the restaurant's business registry, however.

The last critic to review Grenouille, Lesley Chesterman in The Gazette (May 2014), gave the restaurant one star and wrote:

Some might say going down hard on a Plateau bistro is a waste of time. Why not tell us instead where we should eat, what’s hot instead of what’s not? But here’s the thing: La Grenouille is an affordable restaurant where chances are more people will dine this year than at restaurants like Joe Beef or Toqué! These are the eateries we want to know about, where "monsieur and madame tout le monde" can afford to grab a bite. And this is what irks me about La Grenouille. We need restaurants like this that offer good simple food, which is not the case here or in so many second-rate bistros around town. With offerings this pedestrian, La Grenouille risks losing favour with its core customers: the in-the-know locals. Ultimately, star power may get people through the door, but excellent food is the only thing that makes them long to return.

Grenouille was open less than two years.