There Goes the Neighbourhood
There Goes the Neighbourhood
West of downtown Montreal, NDG loses another small business to "pure greed"
It’s the lunch rush at Kokkino Café and everyone who comes by the cash wants to know if the rumours are true.
They are. After going strong for 15 years, John Zampetoulakis says he’s been left with no other choice but to close down the business.
There’s no shortage of dedicated clients at the café by Girouard Park in Notre-Dame-de-Grâce. Many who come around have been coming in daily for years now, and for them it’s so much more than a café.
John says he’s being priced out.
“Over the years I decided I’m done, I can’t do this,” he said Monday in between taking orders. “The taxes doubled, tripled, because all the evaluations are going up. That’s my issue. You can’t afford it after a while. I work by myself here, I’m a one-man band.”
“I sell coffee, not crack,” he tells one customer.
It’s news for his regulars, but the owner says he saw the writing on the wall once his current landlord took over the building in 2017.
The new lease set out 5 per cent rent increases for the next five years, and he got shafted on his share of the building’s taxes too, he says. Since then he’s been paying 40 per cent of all the municipal taxes for the entire building, but prior to then had only been paying the commercial tax. Everything combined it’s about $70,000 a year to keep the business running, he says.
The Rover couldn’t immediately reach his landlord.
“It’s just pure greed,” the father of four says. “I can’t give you half my take-home pay. I do all the work. So it’s like, why? I refuse to work for free.”
He and his wife have tried to negotiate to pay just commercial taxes, but the landlord refuses to renege. It’s written into the lease, and as much as he’d prefer to stay, he says he also won’t accept being exploited. That’s what he tells his customers.
“He’s losing a good tenant,” one says. “You run a very good business, he’s shortsighted.”
In between preparing orders he points to every business in the vicinity, giving me a breakdown of their rent to square footage ratio. Compared to the rest of his neighbours he says he’s paying the most here.
“I end up paying more than the (veterinary clinic) across the street, how? I’ve been here for 15 years. They’re all making fun of me.”
His phone bings non-stop. It's another text from one of his former landlords, a photo of an empty store-front. He’s been trying to convince him to pool funds together so he can get a new business up and running, but John won’t budge.
“He’s relentless, he won't stop calling,” he says. “I’m too old.”
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“This is a gathering place,” says Robert. “I worry about the neighbourhood.”
A lot of the people who come around Kokkino are self-employed or work from home, and wouldn’t have much social interaction without the café otherwise. Lots are also retired. But just about everyone feels welcome, Robert says, saying the demographics here are unique. Robert, a copywriter in his 60s, has been coming here the last four years.
Emilie Malame is self-employed as a translator and called the café her office.
“After about five years of working from my home office I just couldn’t stand it anymore. I’d get really agitated, I was struggling with concentration. I just need to have a social life, I need to see people.
“It’s a really special place,” she says. “You see people here in tough moments… People who have gone through death. People who know John well know that they’re safe here. They know that John will care for them.”
“He’s really a community pillar guy that everybody knows and everybody likes. He treats you well. No bullshit,” said Zane Spurvey. He says he gives about a quarter of his paycheck to the business.
“It’s become such a routine,” he said. “It keeps me sane. It’s that kind of place, and I think those kinds of places don’t happen all the time.”
Locals are feeling apprehensive about the shift in the neighbourhood, especially considering the recent closure of Shaika Café across from Girouard just over a year ago. It was a community hub, a café, but also a venue where you could come for concerts or sell your art. With Kokkino leaving soon now too, there’s fears people in NDG are losing access to places they can come and meet their neighbours.
“Some people, I feel bad for ‘em. Cause they need extra love. And they’re not gonna get it,” John said. “A lot of places don’t cater to that.
“They’re all my kids,” he says. “I tell them, text and call your parents, tell ‘em you love them. That’s all they want.”
For Robert it’s the symptom of a bigger issue. Along the west-end of Sherbrooke Street, and across the city, it’s becoming too hard for small businesses to stay afloat.
“It’s the death of neighbourhoods,” he says. “Some people depend on these kinds of places for their sense of community. We’re losing physical neighbourhoods to virtual ones. People need to be able to go out and socialize.”
It’s a sentiment John shared too — that things haven’t been the same since the pandemic.
“There’s no neighbourhood hub anymore. Where I grew up, the coffee shops were where you went. Anything you needed was at the coffee shop. A painter, a day job, just anything, somebody that can fix something for you or whatever, go to the coffee shop,” he said.
“COVID changed a lot. It changed business and it changed mindsets.”
The business will shutter April 1, but a final send off will be organized for March 18, Malame said. Regulars say they’ll be holding a potluck. “Maybe make some holes in the wall,” John jokes.
As for his plans for what comes afterwards, the owner said he’s looking to “Take the summer off, mourn, and rekindle a new relationship with my family.” After 15 years of working six days per week, he’s got a lot of catching up to do.
And when he looks over all his family photos over the years, there’s one thing that always sticks out to him: that stained white t-shirt of his that you can spot at nearly every single birthday celebration. He was always in too much of a rush to ever switch out of his work clothes in time.
“My kids are like, ‘What are we going to do with the white shirts? We’re gonna burn em!’”
I ask: “How many white shirts you have?”
“About 37. They’re all going in the trash.”
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This is outrageous - so unfair. Who is the damn landlord? And why has he/she able to get away with this? Why is John the fall guy for the rest of the tenents? I also think that maybe John is really tired of the grind, and this may be a 'graceful' way of getting out of it?
There is so much greed in the world today, from fat-cat CEOs down to neighborhood landlords. Like John sang, "we're all fucking peasants." Keep up the good fight, Chris.