The Founder

For the founder of Chez Cora and Cora’s Breakfast & Lunch restaurants, initiative, perseverance, self-confidence and boundless energy have been the main ingredients in her recipe for success.

Cora Mussely Tsouflidou was born into a modest family in Caplan, a little village in the Gaspe peninsula. Cora had all the ingredients for success right from the very start. In 1960, she enrolled at Montreal's Cardinal Leger Institute, promising to pay for her education. There she studied Latin, Greek, literature, art and other courses that would prepare her for a professional career. But destiny had other plans: Cora was now expecting her first child, so she quit college during her final year to devote herself to her new family, and to the two other children who would soon follow. Cora abandoned her plans for a career to become a loving full-time mom.

When her husband left her ten years later, Cora was suddenly a single mother with three teenagers to support. With her characteristic aplomb, Cora bought a small neighbourhood canteen, worked hard, tripled its value and sold it. Not one to rest on her laurels, she became a hostess in a well-known Montreal restaurant, where she worked her way up the ladder as a day manager, general manager and junior partner. For the next five years, Cora perfected her knowledge of the foodservice industry until she mastered all aspects of the hospitality trade.

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