L'offre et la demande. Supply and demand. Montreal is a average size city, there's a lot more restaurant than patrons to fill them up... Also the subburbs are having a selection( not always good) of new big restaurants next to theyre homes so the island get less destination costumers... The new complexe 10-30, for example, next to brossard is planning to open 8 other restaurants after Cumulus... take your calculator... and trust me they paid for an extensive market analisys... they are already "stealing" some costumers to "montreal". Subburds+condos+dynanic citizens+"pouvoir d'achat"= spending in restaurants Because every body knows that we all need to attract people from outside on a saturday night. Even " white tablecloths" restaurants