Épicerie Unique is no misnomer. You can tell as soon as you walk in. The store is meticulously clean and perfectly stocked. Row upon row of beer bottles line the shelves, their labels all perfectly aligned, creating a beautiful tapestry of which beer enthusiasts’ dreams are made.
In a city where there are arguably more dépanneurs than people, it would indeed take something unique to draw people to your store. It seems Bashar Rahman has found just the thing: local beer.
“I didn’t want to open just a dépanneur, I wanted something unique. Quebec is one of the places for micro brewers. There are hundreds of different kinds of beer. So I said, why not beer?” Of his own inventory: “I didn’t count, but I think it should be more than four hundred bottles from various micro brewers.”
“I don’t feel much competition with other dépanneurs,” he adds. “The beer I have, most don’t have it. And they often don’t even want to carry it.”
