A new bistro will soon open in downtown Sherbrooke, but it is not a restaurant like any other. The three young entrepreneurs opening La Buvette du Centro are committed to making their new vegetarian dive 100 per cent waste free. Back in 2016, Charles Picard-Duquette and Noémie Lavoix began a pret-à-manger vegetarian service. They rented out the kitchen at La Capsule, on Wellington. As clients began to accumulate, Picard-Duquette realized that the small space they were using would not be enough. “It was bad for business,” said Picard-Duquette. “We’d have to open whenever La Capsule was closed, so either super early in the morning or at night. Plus, the space was really small. It just wasn’t practical, thinking in the long-term. We realized that opening our own restaurant would be better for the clients and would cost just about the same.” A year later, Julien Fortier-Chicoine joined the team and the idea of the bistro La Buvette du Centro was born. Like Ciboulette, La Buvette is going to cater vegetarian meals. Picard-Duquette has been a vegetarian for years, for environmental reasons, he said. “I did research and when I saw the statistics, I thought they were abhorrent. The amount of C02 required to run the meat industry is just not sustainable, and I thought to myself, the planet can’t go on like this, so neither can I.”
