The Perfect Bar
Bruno Sport Bar: Where Sports and Art Commingle
Sometimes you want to go…where maybe nobody knows your name (and they also speak French…) and that is just the type of place I found myself this past weekend. Bruno Sport Bar, what a place, what a find. This bar is located in the historically working class neighborhood of Rosemont La Petite-Patrie, just two blocks shy of Little Italy in Montréal, Canada and, to me, it is the PERFECT bar.
What makes the perfect bar? That is as varied as the drink order you may prefer but there is something remarkable and rare about finding something that matches, fits, and has the, “this is it” quality in just about anything so I am going to espouse on a sports bar of all things because well frankly, perfection is rare and should be explored whenever it is found.
About Bruno Sport Bar
Currently located at 313 Rue Beaubien E, Bruno Sport Bar (aka Bruno’s) was founded in 1985 and has had two previous locations in Montréal. It was started by brothers Bruno (the elder of the two) and Agostino (last names would not be divulged when inquired). They are of Italian descent and it has been family owned and friends/family operated ever since. Agostino is regularly there (aged perhaps in his late 70s) as well as the efficient and friendly Anna Marie and Sofi (back stories about how they ended up there were told but not to be shared here). It is near the historic section of Italian immigrants that found home in this northern Québec region that is infiltrated by the ever consistent trends of gentrification but this neighborhood still holds onto some of its consolidated immigrant past.
Bruno’s has a long bar right as you walk in on your left hand side and they have a sprinkling of tables throughout and a back section where larger groups can gather. The space is open, convivial and is a mix of old school meets relaxed ambience. There is hand scripted signs and menus, neon and LED accent lighting in hues of soft pink, orange and blue and a variety of posters, photos and knick knacks that are there because they mean(t) something to the owners versus faux interior design contrived to harken back to some bygone era. There is also apparently a downstairs space but on that particular night it was closed.
They also serve food. Definitely not the reason why you came but the ability to order a sandwich to ease or absorb the liquids imbibed makes Bruno’s a casual place where you can go even if it is daylight hours or if you’re in need of sobering up after a few too many. They also serve coffee and not the drip-drab kind but like all things Euro inflected in this city, it is made from fresh espresso and steamed frothy milk. Also popcorn is on the house and generously handed out (very appreciated if you didn’t order said sandwich but you should have). There is a generosity of spirit in this approach of casual food, alcohol and caffeine, making it a bar yes, but also if you just want an espresso and watch a game, they are a-ok with that as well.
The Sports
In addition to the general vibes, ambience and roominess of Bruno’s it also has The Sports! There are numerous TVs and projectors on every wall of this bar and they are placed just where you want them to be — above head level of the crowd, clearly focused and showing 360 degree views of duplicate and different games simultaneously. The night I was there happened to be when March Madness was in full swing as well as the tail end of the regular season games for the NBA. As my piece about Ja Morant attests, this writer is a big basketball fan, so imagine me, visiting for a long weekend, thinking I would be starved from my basketball watching habits and I enter this mecca of basketball in the middle of French speaking Montréal.
Agog, thrilled, grateful, enthused was all I could feel when I entered Bruno’s and there were a dozen or more screens all playing basketball. The Warriors/Hawks game was on that night but the real show was the NCAA Tournament game with Saint Peters (the upset Cinderella team, ranked 15) vs. Purdue (ranked 3) and we watched the historic upset win that Saint. Peters had that night. I never would have thought so many people in Montréal would like US college basketball so much but the packed bar attested otherwise. It felt like many a sports bar — people collectively cheering, the “Yes-es” being exclaimed, the interstitial debates about rankings/stats and players between sips of beer and commercial breaks. There was even a Saint Peters’ alumnus celebrating the win at the bar, how bizarre but also how lovely is that!
I asked someone who lives nearby and they said that this packed ambience was not par for the usual course for Bruno’s, most of the time it is maybe a handful of older Italian guys sitting around watching one type of game or another (baseball, hockey, boxing etc.) but even if that is the case, if I lived in Montréal it would be my go-to bar and I would make it a self imposed goal to become a regular.
Art Bar
The night that I discovered my new perfect bar, it did happen to be packed and it was full of mostly hot young things. Arty/musician types that had the same genre vibes that visit Forlini’s (as I discussed in this essay) post art openings in NYC. I was luckily there with a Montréal born and bred artist — the most fantastic human and painter Vincent Larouche — who told me about how Bruno’s has also been the site of art events and was an artist hang out. Again, not dissimilar to Forlini’s, and a slew of other such types of spaces and happenings in cities everywhere.
Bruno Sport Bar is near 305 Rue de Bellechasse which was the location of artist studios from the late 1990s to last year (sadly the artists were evicted during the pandemic). Because of the around the corner location, Bruno’s was a go to spot for artists over all those many years and they were welcome into this convivial neighborhood bar like everyone else is by Bruno’s hospitable owners and staff. This act of artists being regulars led to the creation of the Bruno Sport Bar Biennale that took place respectively in 2017 and 2019. In these biennales artists showcased their work on the walls (sprinkled in between the regular decor) and on those wrap around TVs I mentioned, there was video art displayed on every second screen. I was obviously not there to witness it but you can see some details and artist lists for one of the shows on Swoon.tw and also read more about it and the general Montréal scene in an article in MoMus.
Things like this, the Bruno Sport Bar Biennale, brings me so much joy to hear about. It reminds me of the folkloric coolness of projects such as; Carol Goodden, Tina Girouard and Gordon Matta-Clark’s FOOD, Martin Kippenberger’s bar haunt Paris Bar, this bar I went to in Berlin many moons ago which was all white tile and had booze and art in equal measure (name totally slips my mind but was loosely associated with the now defunct VVORK), and the dozens of other pop up art events/shows in non-traditional spaces like the show I saw in a Chinatown plant shop a few years ago, the one night show at North Dumpling featuring Anna Uddenberg and Anne de Vries, curated by Liz Craft and Pentti Monkkonen, and Ben R. Clement’s show, Go to it, hew it, in a short term rental space in the Diamond District.
This is the type of art/life/fluidity that I believe is the real life force of contemporary art and what it can truly be (and needs). The flexibility, the collective (or individuated) brainchild desire to spring forth into the world a way to show, gather, and present art because it has an urgency and enthusiasm that are not contingent or delimited due to; budgets, permissions, institutions, and entrenched planning. Sure, there is a trade off in these types of one-offs. They are oftentimes more buzz than finalization, more rough and ready then fine tuned but that’s the beauty of it. It lets things be alive, even if for a night and makes the work of artists and organizers have volition and the bracing fresh air of public attention. This is the thing that all art and ideas need. The act of being witnessed and shared.
Bruno Sport Bar is the best type of place for these interventions to take place. Even though they may be low-fi, they are fantastic because they are public and open to everyone. Everyone includes; the arty kids, the tourists, the locals, the lifers…it is a mix of communities (a word egregious disabused these days but here it has actual meaning) and these types of events let things happen, let people experience what they otherwise might not, and doing it together.
There is an artifact of the art happenings that occurred at Bruno’s still on view as a piece that was installed in one of the biennales is still on the bar’s ceiling. A poem on white paper that is the size and taking the place of one of the drop down ceiling tiles that is passively or perhaps forever on display in pink ambient light, unbenounced to the public that gathers below.
This leftover, forgotten installed piece is a testament to the casual grace and spirit of the purveyors of Bruno Sport Bar, they don’t mind that it’s still up there, everything is just fine as it is.
Nightcap Closing Thought
Obviously, I highly recommend that anyone visiting Montréal go to Bruno Sport Bar whenever and as much as they can. It is a true delight and even if you are not a sports fan it is worth the trip. It has snacks, caffeine, cocktails, cold beers in beautiful glasses and a general je ne sais quois that can only be attributed to the two brothers who own the bar and the famiglia staffing they have. It is authentic, not in a way that is precious, quaint or idealized. It is just being what it is and that’s all it is trying to be. The focus around sports may be their primary calling card but this is a cultural swath that serves to equalize and welcome as well. Go to Bruno Sport Bar, watch a game if you wish (or not) but be there to soak in the inviting and unpretentiousness of being a place where the ambience is so perfect that it makes you ponder the necessities of aesthetic possibilities and the idea that art can be anywhere.
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Additional Reading
Twerdy, S., Recognition and Reckoning: Montreal’s Alternative Art Spaces at the Crossroads, MoMus, July 27, 2018.
Blessi, G.T., Sacco, P.L., Pilati, T., Independent artist-run centres: an empirical analysis of the Montreal non-profit visual arts field, Cultural Trends, June 2011, pp. 141–166
Cartwright, L.K., What Are Creative Art Spaces and Why Do They Exist? World Futures, The Journal of New Paradigm Research, Volume 73, 2017, pp 1–5.
Grodach, C., Art spaces, public space, and the link to community development, Community Development Journal, Oxford University Press, vol. 45, №4, October 2010, pp. 474–493.
Special thanks to Vincent Larouche for their insights into the history of Bruno Sport Bar
