George Ferenczi on the coffeehouse scene on Stanley Street
Image: Ad for Café Prag, June 1969. Logos, vol. 2, no 1. ARCMTL collection
Transcription: 5th Anniversary / prag coffee house / 1433 bishop
Credit: ARCMTL collection. Interview was conducted in Montreal on March 3, 2021 with George Ferenczi by Louis Rastelli, Director of ARCMTL.
Duration: 2:30 min
Excerpt of an interview with George Ferenczi, longtime author and teacher. He describes Montreal’s Stanley Street coffee house scene of the 1960s, and recalls the special atmosphere of these venues.
Transcription:
George Ferenczi: […] and the Café Prag was cheap, and it was also next to Concordia [University]. And in the late sixties, [Mordecai] Richler for example, was writer in residence already at Concordia around ’67. And then people sometimes would have something there and then later have wine or whatever at the Bistro or I don’t know, but the Café Prag, we definitely had readings at Café Prag sometimes. And there were small shows too. And…
Louis Rastelli: I think, I think Gary [Eisenkraft], Gary started back there, right? Didn’t he organize shows in the very back of the room or something?
George Ferenczi: I think so, I think so. And I think the owner’s name was Kurt, and it was a great little place. It was a real old style coffee house, you know? And I think in the downtown area, it was the only one that was like really a student coffee house. There was the Rosemarie, which was Hungarian, on Stanley, and that was also, but that was very different, I mean, it wasn’t like music or poetry or anything, it was a good cheap place and there were newspapers and interesting people. But Café Prag was really an old style coffee house in the true sense, you know? And they had good soup! [Laughs.] I just bit on a bone, she left a bone in. And he had good soup and coffee, good coffee, and yeah, it was…
Louis Rastelli: Sounds like a mixed crowd, too. I talked to somebody earlier today, a Francophone, who said would hang out a lot at the Café Prag.
George Ferenczi: Well, as I say, it was cheap. And what was cool about it is, Concordia, some people would go there before going to Concordia, because Concordia had started the film series. I went to McGill [University], and Concordia [University] later, but Concordia with [unintelligible] had started a film series in room 101 in the new Hall Building.