Club Soda
When Toulouse Plante was asked to empty the crumbling garage that Club Soda had abandoned following its move downtown, he expected to find piles of metal and scrap. As a carpenter and builder, he often clears out or demolishes old spaces and enjoys keeping an eye out for treasures, a habit he inherited from his urban planner and architect father. Toulouse collects old bottles found on the floors or in the walls, rusty license plates, vintage Coca-Cola or Pepsi signs, and even recounts one of his luckiest finds: a 1940s Coca-Cola refrigerator. But when he came face-to-face with an old Club Soda sign, warm memories of his first concerts immediately came flooding back. “I can’t tell you how much dust there was, you couldn’t even see the sign,” remembers Toulouse. “There was so much dirt and black dust on it. But I saved it.”
The sign Toulouse found had been displayed at Club Soda’s first location at 5240, avenue du Parc, which Guy Gosselin, filmmaker André Gagnon, Joseph Martellino, and Martin Després opened in 1982. They converted a reception hall above a carpet store, envisioning the space as a new kind of performance venue: a modern, intimate cabaret that would welcome performers of all genres. During that time, more than a thousand artists and over a million spectators filled Club Soda’s avenue du Parc location[2]. The venue attracted prominent names in both anglophone and francophone music, including Chris Isaak, Jeff Buckley, The Tragically Hip, Lenny Kravitz, Soundgarden, Oasis, Les Colocs, and Jean Leloup.
A concert stub from Oasis at Club Soda, March 1995 (Tardif, 2025)
Club Soda also served as the cultural seedbed for Québécois stand-up comedy through its wildly popular Lundis des Ha! Ha! events. On February 21, 1983, the event’s hosts Ding and Dong (Serge Thériault and Claude Meunier) took to the Club Soda stage for the first time to an absolutely packed house. Between 700 and 800 people attended the premiere, and over 400 people were turned away from the now-legendary sold-out show. The duo would go on to create a spin-off to their live show, the iconic Québec series La Petite Vie, cementing Club Soda’s founding role in Québec’s thriving comedy scene.
A blurb about the first Ding et Dong show notes the novelty of stand-up (La Presse, 1983)
The same year was one of paradox: despite the artistic explosion it had created, Club Soda was already struggling with debts and noise complaints from neighbours. Producers Michel Sabourin and Rubin Fogel joined the team to help save the venue, and in 1985, they became co-owners. By the early 1990s, they began considering a move to a new location. According to Michel Sabourin, changes to avenue du Parc, the difficulty of finding parking spaces in the “highway” that the street had become, and the move of many comedians to larger venues had made it outdated, and it was time for a change[3].
To put this shift into action, Club Soda’s owners tuned into Montreal’s cultural policy. The city had begun efforts to transform the former red light district, which was historically centred on the corner of boulevard Saint Laurent and rue Sainte Catherine. The Club Soda group tapped into this change and obtained assistance from the Culture Investment Fund, with which they bought a building dating back to the 1870s that had been at the heart of the historical red light district. The edifice had served as the Crystal Palace Theatre from 1908 to 1983, then as the New Orleans Cabaret starting in 1991[4]. Now, it would continue its life as a cabaret at the centre of a new development: Le Quartier des Spectacles. In an interview with The Gazette in October 1998, Sabourin remarked that “moving to St. Laurent Blvd. fits into the city’s plan to improve the neighbourhood. […] It’s a little like the scheme to clean up Broadway in New York. The idea is to once again make the area a cultural centre of Montreal like it was at the turn of the century’”[5]. In fact, a La Presse article on Club Soda’s relocation from a few months prior had already called the area the “mini-Broadway montréalais” [6], while part-owner Rubin Fogel claimed the area was “turning into Montreal’s theatre district”[7].
The new Club Soda location opened on March 21, 2000, offering close access to the metro, updated sound and lighting, and even a retractable balcony. Finally, the venue would be “right in the thick of things, with the Just for Laughs festival, the FrancoFolies, and all sorts of new student housing” [8]. In 2023, the cultural development company and record label Let Artists Be bought Club Soda. It continues to be a home for a wide variety of performers, events, parties, and screenings.
For Toulouse, finding the forgotten Club Soda sign was a sentimental symbol of his own history with the venue. “I used to go to old punk shows back then, heavy metal,” he remembers. “Even when I was young, at 16, I went to shows that were more all-ages, that didn’t have alcohol. I saw all my first heavy music bands there.” His first show at the venue—the German metal band Kreator— introduced him to the genre, and he credits Club Soda for igniting his lifelong interest in metal and punk. The sign represents both the venue’s beginnings and his own growth as a music lover, a time when he would spend much of his time going to shows with his friends. “I don’t see my old friends as much anymore. They have families. They’ve moved to the countryside, a few moved to Western Canada,” he recounts. But the sign reminds him of an exciting era of concert-going, and a close-knit scene that he feels is now gone as venues become more polished. Despite offers from Club Soda and collector friends to buy the sign, Toulouse had kept the precious relic for 25 years before donating it to the Montreal Signs Project. As part of our collection, the sign recalls the roots of an iconic venue and the formative memories it created for countless music lovers in Montreal.
Writing and research by Marie Bernard-Brind’Amour
MAIN IMAGE: Club Soda’s Saint Laurent location (La Presse, 2023)[1]
Sources
[1] Siag, J. (2023, June 1). Le Club Soda change de propriétaire. La Presse.
[2] Cardinal, F. (2000, March 25). Le Club Soda s’est refait une beauté. Le Devoir.
[3] Beaunoyer, J. (2000, March 2). Le Nouveau Club Soda ouvre enfin. La Presse, D6.
[4] Club Soda. Montréal Concert Poster Archive. Retrieved December 17, 2025.
[5] Club Soda clears hurdle for new spot. (1998). The Gazette.
[6] Le maire Bourque à la rescousse du Club Soda. (1998, August 21). La Presse.
[7] Soda’s new flavour. (2000, March 29). The Gazette.
[8] Sutherland, A. (1999, July 24). Club Soda put on ice. The Gazette.