It was the locus of hip, the venue for cool, the scene of the scene. Through its doors passed the likes of Neil Young, Leonard Cohen, Joni Mitchell, George Harrison, Gordon Lightfoot, Van Morrison, Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Otis Spann, Saul Rubinek, Rich Little, IrvingLayton, William Hawkins, John Hammond, David Wiffen, Ramblin' Jack Elliott, Bruce Cockburn, T-Bone Walker, Sonny Terry, Brownie McGhee, Phil Ochs, Odetta, Tom Rush, Jesse Colin Young, Lenny Breau, Kris Kristofferson, Richie Havens, and hundreds more.

It never got too big for its britches; it was catholic in its music and warm in its embrace. For the people who worked there, for the ones who just hung out there, and for the folks who regularly scraped together the couple of dollars to catch the latest act, it was a place so wonderful and so appealing that its memory lingers decades later.

It was Café Le Hibou. This is its story.

Related articles from the Library

• Fill the Gap (Ottawa West News, 2015)
• Joni Mitchell, Hendrix, Lightfoot — Le Hibou, “absolutely vital” to Ottawa’s local music scene (Ottawa Magazine, 2017)
• We Are As The Times Are (Burnstown Publishing House, 2015)