Mr. Speaker, it is with sadness that I rise today to pay respects to Fred Meilleur, an Ottawa Valley icon. For 62 years, Fred was the owner and operator of the Chapeau Hotel and Fred's Steak House, which anyone growing up in the Ottawa Valley knew simply as Fred's.
Fred was known for his hospitality, his steak dinners and a photographic memory. That memory extended beyond a person to all of the person's family. It was not unusual to walk into Fred's on a Saturday afternoon and find a couple of the old lads singing the old songs over endless beers and coke glasses full of white wine. People would drive from all over for his steak dinners and his mouth-watering desserts, like butterscotch pie and lemon meringue pie.
If Fred found out it was a person's first visit to his steak house, he would ask if that person would like to see the legendary tail of the silver beaver. Fred would walk that person around the hotel and eventually would walk inside the cooler where there was a nickel sitting on the counter.
Fred represents the passing of a generation. May Fred go in peace.