The Montreal Eaton's 9th floor restaurant is an Art deco landmark in Montreal. It used to be known simply as "The Ninth Floor".
Lady Eaton was the wife of the multi-millionaire owner of the former Eaton's chain of department stores in Canada. For several decades she endeavoured to give her own interpretation of "class and style" to the major stores in the chain. On January 26, 1931, she opened a large art deco restaurant on the top 9th floor of the Montreal Eaton's store, designed by the architect Jacques Carlu.[1] It was a very close copy of the first class dining hall of her favourite transatlantic liner, the Ile de France. After being closed for several years following Eaton's bankruptcy in 1999 the 9th floor restaurant was given heritage status by the Québec government. Plans for retrofitting the restaurant to modern safety standards were drawn up by Fournier, Gersovitz, Moss et associés, a Montreal architectural firm but have yet to be implemented. Currently it is mothballed and slowly deteriorating.
This restaurant is now the largest memento of the defunct liner and is a registered historical site. It has been the locale for rites of passage and/or female bonding activities over several generations, as described in the National Film Board of Canada documentary Les Dames du 9e, known in English as The Ladies of the 9th Floor. The main 9th floor corridor leading from the elevators to the restaurant is also finished in the art deco style.
