“It’s Mr. Jubinville,” Tony Di Lallo tells us as a man and his son enter the Ville-Émard restaurant as if it were their second home.
“Dilallo, what is this? », jokes Arthur Jubinville. “I’ve been coming every week for years,” the 91-year-old says more seriously.
The loyal customer doesn’t even need to order. The waiters know he wants a fish burger cut in half with double the tartar sauce.
“Mr. Jubinville is even the first customer who had the t-shirt with the famous burger upside down,” points out Giuseppe “Joe” Maselli, who is practically part of the Di Lallo family (and who took over from Tony several years ago when buying his shares from him).
“Joe is the altar boy my brother Louis brought home from church to show him how to make hamburgers. And today he’s the owner,” Tony says proudly.
“I started cutting onions and tomatoes on Saturday and Sunday mornings when I was 8 years old. I was a waiter, in the fryer… and I even became their accountant,” Joe continues.
“I’m trying to tough it out to be there for the 100th anniversary,” says Tony, at the height of his eighty-two and a half years.
Recently, the closure of the Main Deli was announced, and the Montreal Gazette reported that the owner of Momesso, the famous sports café on Upper Lachine Road, wanted to sell. The latter also contacted the owners of Dilallo in the (vain) hope that they would take over, tells us Joe Maselli, who has two partners, including Louis Di Lallo (Tony’s nephew).
Like many Italians of Albanian origin, Luigi and Josephina Di Lallo took up residence in Ville-Émard. They lived behind the business with their seven children. “Before being a restaurant, it was a convenience store,” emphasizes Tony, the youngest of the family.
When his brother Louis unexpectedly made a sandwich for a customer who was asking for something to eat, his father smelled a good deal. He was going to sell what he did best: burgers. “He was doing a deal, but he was doing it the right way,” Tony says.
His secret: hot peppers harvested from his garden. “My father wasn’t tall like me. In the garden, we couldn’t see it, the plants were so high,” says his son, who has just frozen his harvest.
Dilallo is a story of burgers, but also of hockey. In 2007, Ken Dryden (legendary CH goalkeeper) even talked about the burgers at the Allard Street restaurant when his jersey was removed at the Bell Centre.
After being responsible for the hockey teams at Saint-Jean-de-Matha church, Louis Di Lallo, with the help of his brothers, created the Hurricanes club in the 1960s. They recruited a certain Ron Stevenson as a coach and allowed several young people from the neighborhood from modest families to flourish in sport. “We had the meetings in the basement of the restaurant,” Tony says.
Dilallo was originally located on Monk Boulevard. The construction of the Monk metro station for the 1976 Olympic Games forced its move not far away on Allard Street.
Thirty years later, a serious fire forced the restaurant to close. “Not working for several months, I was pretty lost,” says Tony, a dynamo who still volunteers every morning at church.
Tony Di Lallo is excited that his former family restaurant — which also includes franchises and food trucks — is heading toward its 100th anniversary in 2029.
However, he finds it hard to believe that a burger sells for $8 when it was six for 25 cents in another era. He also understands why young people do not want to follow in the footsteps of their restaurateur parents. ” It’s hard. You almost have to live in the place. »
“The price of bread has doubled in two years,” emphasizes Joe, who does not want to skimp on quality.
His greatest pride? When he wears his restaurant’s t-shirt on vacation far from Montreal and someone calls him to say: “Dilallo, these are the best burgers! »
