Rick Mauran was a recluse in life and a recluse in death.
He was both one of Canada’s greatest citizens and one of its least known. His anonymity stymied his profile. Privacy was paramount for him.
The major force behind the founding of both Swiss Chalet and Harvey’s restaurants in the 1950s, Mauran didn’t want anyone to know about him and his exploits while he accrued a lifetime of monumental success.
The Montreal native was a reluctant Canadian business titan. His sheen was dynamic, his portfolio prolific, his personality passive, his privacy nearly impenetrable.
The same kind of secrecy emerged when he died.
He passed away in July of 2022, but nobody in Canada knew about it except family and friends. His passing in a hospital in Paris was kept quiet. Until now.
A friend of the Mauran family came forth recently to tell me, his biographer, that Mauran had died. He had gone into hospital for surgery that wasn’t life-threatening, and he never came out. He was 89.
“He was healthy until the surgery,” the friend said.
Family and friends gathered in Paris for a mini Celebration of Life shortly after he passed away. He left behind his sister Louise McConnell, daughter Sloan, a number of grandchildren and his long-time girlfriend Christina Michevic. His only son, Richard, died of a heart attack in 2023 while walking down a street in Toronto.
As the author of Genius, a book about Mauran released in 2019, I was dumbfounded when I found out almost two years later that he had passed away. There is no obituary or any kind of public notice that he is no longer with us.
When I asked the family friend what Mauran’s will and estate were worth, he said “billions and billions.” Mauran was a shrewd investor.
“His success was so staggering. He was a big-win investor,” the friend said in an interview at a Swiss Chalet.
Mauran worked with his father Marcel at his Montreal restaurant on Sherbrooke West in N.D.G. called Chalet BBQ in the late 1940s and early 1950s and then wanted to branch out on his own by moving to Toronto.
Ironically, just a few years ago, the Chalet eatery reverted to Mauran’s hands after his sister sold it to him.
Mauran’s venture to Toronto at age 20 to open his first Swiss Chalet in 1954 was done in partnership with 37-year-old Rene Prud’Homme, a grain-feed salesman.
They opened the eatery across from Varsity Stadium at the corner of Bloor Street and Bedford Road on April 10, 1954 on the site of an upmarket grocery store.
“I used to help my father in the restaurant business on weekends and when I finished high school, I wanted to get into business for myself,” Mauran said when interviewed for the book. “I borrowed about $25,000 from my father.
“We renovated the place and rented it from the owner. In those days, you never thought there would be inflation but after awhile, the taxes for the property were more than the rent we were paying. So the guy wanted to sell. We had signed a 20-year lease, but we bought the place after 10 years in 1964.”
Mauran’s friends such as late billionaire Peter Munk thought he was out of his mind, opening a restaurant with only chicken, but those quarter-chicken dinners became popular and they remain an addictive staple today.
“We thought it would be a bust,” Munk said for the book. “We thought he was crazy, just wanting to sell chicken. He came up with this simple idea of selling chicken. He was tremendously successful. He did a huge business.
“The money and cash poured in. Bags and bags of cash. He had huge cash flow. He did a huge business. You had to line up for chicken to go. He did great for someone who didn’t go to college or university.
“He and I were very good friends. He was just spectacular. He was a very cool guy. He was a very secretive guy, all secretive. You had to get information out of him with a pair of pliers. He’s not a public figure. He keeps a very low profile.”
Within a year of operating Swiss Chalet, he purchased a sleek Mercedes-Benz SL-300 gullwing model, a two-door, four-speed coupe with doors that opened butterfly style over the top of the vehicle.
“It was expensive, but I had the money and I could afford it,” Mauran told me in 2007. “I paid $7,000 for the gullwing. Today, those cars would be worth $1.5 million.”
Mauran opened the first Harvey’s with George Sukornyk on April 1, 1959 north of Toronto, in Richmond Hill, at the corner of Yonge Street and Observatory Lane.
Swiss Chalet is celebrating its 70th anniversary this year and Harvey’s is 65. Chalet BBQ turned 80 this year.
You had to get information out of him with a pair of pliers
Mauran had his hands in a lot of pies. Unbeknownst to many, he was also one of the original founders in 1967 of Mackenzie Financial, which grew to become one of Canada’s biggest and most popular mutual-fund companies. Mauran, Alex Christ and Jim O’Donnell helped make Mackenzie Financial the success story it is today.
Tired of the restaurant business, he sold the Canadian rights to Swiss Chalet and Harvey’s for $15 million plus stock incentives in 1977 to Cara Operations, which currently operates under the banner Recipe Unlimited. A few years later, he sold the U.S. rights to Cara for about $10 million.
During his time with Swiss Chalet and Harvey’s, Mauran spent a lot of time in Europe. He went off-shore to avoid Canadian taxes in many locations, including England and Malta.
He owned property in Paris, the entire ground floor of an apartment building in London, England, and homes in Roquebrune-Cap-Martin, France, and Fort Lauderdale, Fla., as well as a yacht.
Mauran had never talked to a reporter or author until I coaxed him to do so in 2007. We talked many times on the phone and met for a lunch at a restaurant in Fort Lauderdale.
“I don’t like press,” Mauran told me. “It’s no plus for me. I’m not interested in any publicity. I see what happens when stories are written about you. Look at what happened to Princess Diana when you get notoriety.”
National Post
Danny Gallagher is a Montreal Expos historian, who wrote the book Genius about Rick Mauran.
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