Accommodation Chalou

Accommodation Chalou owes its name to Charles and Louis Tremblay, the sons of Madeleine et Jean-Guy Tremblay. In 1991, when Madeleine decided she wanted to get back into the business world, the couple purchased a convenience store in the Québec City suburb of Saint-Émile. Five years later, Louis, a Université Laval business graduate, and Charles, a PR wizard, joined the business, which was incorporated as CHALOU in 1996.

The family worked hard to grow the business by building on their respective strengths. Opportunity knocked in the form of beer sales and the family decided to capitalize on the rapid expansion of Québec’s craft brewery industry. In 2004, they modernized the store, investing several hundreds of thousands of dollars to lay the groundwork for further growth. Central to this effort was the construction of the biggest beer fridge in the entire Québec City region. Accommodation Chalou now keeps up to 10,000 cases or more of beer in stock—everything from popular big-name brands to specialty microbrews from all across the province.