Star Bar is an essential Montreal hangout for Pizza Bouquet slices, cheap drinks, and packed events

André Thériault and David Evans had a conversation that a lot people would have in their early twenties. The difference is that they followed through.

Stumbling out of a Toronto bar, they shook hands on a dream: "We were drunk at a bar, and we said, 'in ten years, we'll open a bar together,'" André recalls. Fast forward 15 years—just five years past the mark, not too shabby—and that promise materialized into Star Bar, their cozy spot on Saint-Laurent that's quickly become a local fixture.

A lot happened in that decade and a half. After Thériault moved to Montreal and launched Pizza Bouquet out of Notre-Dame-Des-Quilles (now widely considered among the city's best pizza spots), the pandemic hit. Evans, working odd jobs in Toronto, hadn't seen a paycheque in months when André called asking for help.