Restaurant John gone after 92-years

What might be Montreal's longest-running family-run restaurant is no more.
  After 92-years the Restaurant John has shut down for good. The premises have continued to operate as a restaurant but with new owners, who recently had it closed for a couple of weeks of renovations.
 Tony Volikakis, reached Wednesday at his home in Brossard, told Coolopolis that he feels "great" about selling the corner eatery.  
   The 73-year-old had run the restaurant on Notre Dame and St. Marguerite since 1963, most recently with his daughter Jo-Ann. Both of them had some medical issues that they wanted to tend to so they decided to sell it off to new owners.
   Tony's father John, a Greek immigrant, opened the restaurant one block over at St. Philip in 1919, a year I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles and Al Jolson were big on the radio, and the Stanley Cup final between the Habs and Seattle was cancelled due to the post WWI flu epidemic.
  He moved t to its longstanding corner location in 1938.
  Tony didn't see his father John much at home as a kid, but he could spend time with him at the restaurant and ended up doing about 64 of his years working the grill and shmoozing with patrons. He eventually took the operation over, as his other two brothers had little interest in running the place.
   Volikakis said that the area went into some decline in the 1990s when a lot of the needletrade disappeared, a shift caused by NAFTA. Now-defunct companies such as Dominion Textiles, RCA-Victor, Stelco were such bustling enterprises that "you couldn't even walk down the sidewalk, it was so busy."
   Volikakis grew up across the street and describes himself "as a St. Henry guy." Noting that, "it was a very friendly place, everybody would talk to each other."
  Longtime customers included actors from the Theatre du Nouveau Monde who rehearsed nearby, as well as veteran city councillor Germain Pregent, who has been badly paralyzed for about the last dozen years, as well as Donald Johnston, the former MP, "a very nice guy."
 Volikakis had no regrets about signing the restaurant over on May 31, "because I was ready for it." On that very day he served customers, many who knew it would be the last meal they'd eat at the 92-year-old eatery.
  His three kids, who include a postman and a secretary were offered the chance to take it over but all declined.
  But the new owner Pierre-Luc Bergeron has kept the name, and added a 2.0 at the end, something Volikakis was thrilled about.
   Bergeron told Coolopolis that the menu will have a few fancier items, including a sandwich with two grilled cheese where the bread would go, and a burger with sun-dried tomatoes and bacon.
  They're hoping to get a liquor license in September and have kept a wall covered with the vintage historical photos of St. Henry that long adorned the original commerce.