St-Hubert BBQ Ltd is a chain of Canadian casual dining restaurants best known for its rotisserie chicken. St-Hubert is most popular in Quebec, and in other French-Canadian areas such as Eastern Ontario and New Brunswick. St-Hubert is the 16th largest restaurant chain operating in Canada. The chain enjoys the highest customer loyalty of any restaurant in Canada, aside from Tim Hortons, according to industry analysis. In March 2016, St-Hubert agreed to be purchased by Toronto-area based Cara Operations (now known as Recipe Unlimited), the owner of the rival Swiss Chalet rotisserie chicken chain, for $537 million. Cara increased its restaurant presence in Quebec as the St-Hubert chicken deal closed in September 2016. History The first restaurant opened in September 1951 on Saint Hubert Street in Montreal, just south of Beaubien street. This branch still operates today, but has been converted to a St-Hubert Express take-out restaurant. The founding family of Hélène and René Léger copied similar barbecue restaurants in the city. St-Hubert began selling its gravy in supermarkets across Quebec in 1965. The company also sells its barbecue sauce in the ready-to-serve format, desserts, seasonings, and frozen chicken in supermarkets. The original St-Hubert Chicken mascot was created and designed by Disney animator Jack Dunham. Dunham also produced St-Hubert's first television commercials. However, the current St-Hubert mascot, which has been in use since the early 1970s, was not created by Dunham. St-Hubert also opened a restaurant in Fort Lauderdale, Florida in 1979, serving Canadians who spent their vacations in southern Florida. The restaurant was known for its ability to serve its customers in French, as most of its clients were French Canadians, which motivated the employers of their own accord to seek French-speaking employees. The location closed down sometime in the 1990s. In 1983, St-Hubert attempted another type of expansion, this time in Italian cuisine. St-Hubert inaugurated the Pastelli restaurant and announced that it wanted to open 30 to 40 other franchises across Quebec during the following five years. The results were conclusive and other franchises were opened, but St-Hubert decided to end the experiment in the late 1980s. A longtime purveyor of Pepsi products, St-Hubert switched to Coca-Cola products in the early 2000s. In 2005, St-Hubert voluntarily became the first restaurant chain in Quebec to ban smoking inside its restaurants. This was one year before the province of Quebec made it mandatory. St-Hubert's president was quoted in a Postmedia News