Opened on June 15, 1976 by Georges Frangié, born in Aleppo, a year after his arrival in Montréal. His wife and daughters never left home.
Georges Frangié, originally from Aleppo, met his Armenian wife Jacqueline (née Saroukhan) when she came to study in his hometown. The couple settled in Montréal - in the Villeray district, because two of Jacqueline's sisters already lived there - and Georges, who had a thousand careers, opened a very small restaurant with four or five tables on June 15, 1976 at the corner of Jean-Talon and Avenue de Gaspé. Lamb, too expensive to import at the time, was absent from the first menu; it would only make its debut, as a twenty-four-hour stew, decades later. Georges gradually bought the building and enlarged the room, giving it the appearance of a citadel of Aleppo, including arches and family portraits.
When Georges died in 2005, it was Jacqueline — who had never worked in her life before her husband's heart attack — who took over the kitchen, before handing it over to her daughters Chahla and Tania, the latter becoming, despite herself, "the face" of the restaurant. The wine list, put together “for the love of wine” rather than for profit by Alain Paillassard, is today among the best in the city. The menu has changed little since 1976: large tables, large dishes, Syrian and Armenian cuisine designed for sharing.