When I first moved to Montreal, people often asked about the difference between the city and my hometown. I felt my go-to response said it all: In Toronto, people would wait in line for an hour to get an ice cream cone. Montrealers were far less driven by hype and far too sensible to spend their time waiting for desserts.

I was finally forced to rethink that maxim when I found myself standing in line for half an hour at Montreal’s Bernie Beigne. In the few years since I’d left the Mile End, the pink-and-blue donut shop had gone from the kind of spot you could drop by on a lazy Sunday morning to a viral sensation, with the lines to match. Stopping by for a simple cinnamon sugar? Be prepared to wait behind swarms of tourists taking their pick—and pics—of donuts loaded with candy and glazed for the gods.

If I sound like a hater, I didn’t start out as one. But when American actress Blake Lively took to Instagram to call the shop her “entire personality,” I’ll admit I raised an eyebrow. When Bernie Beigne started selling shirts touting the endorsement, okay, maybe my other eyebrow went up to match. And when Japanese retail giant Uniqlo, to mark the opening of its location at the new Royalmount mall, chose the donut shop as one of three local businesses to be featured on limited-edition tees—well, I just had to see the shirts for myself.

“I wanted the Bernie Beigne one, actually, but they didn’t have it in my size,” a shopper tells me the day the mall opened its doors. He’s sporting a different Uniqlo tee, this one decorated with a flurry of fries in collaboration with poutine staple La Banquise. In a real coup, his girlfriend snagged a shirt featuring the city's most iconic casse-croûte (snack bar), the Gibeau Orange Julep; those sold out in seconds, he says. But really, he tells me, it doesn’t matter much whether they’re repping a long-standing staple like the Julep or a fledgling business like Bernie Beigne. What matters is the collab.

For shoppers like him, the collab is cause for local pride. But there’s a kind of context collapse that worries me. To a corporate giant, a local haunt is functionally no different than a mass-market Basquiat or even Mickey Mouse. The reproduction process is meant to strip away specificity, until all that’s left is a kernel of an idea: legible, spreadable, uncontroversial. I can see why the Julep was chosen for the task—its many years of history give it symbolic heft. Looking at that iconic orange orb, the city’s past shines through, its grand ambitions spent on offbeat visions.

When I see the Bernie Beigne shirt, though, all I can think of is what came before: Chez Boris, which once sold perfect little donuts in the Mile End. It was dimly lit, almost comically so; you often had to sit right by the window to see the pages of your book. But it was a place I loved, one where I passed long hours with friends. Then, one day, the landlord refused to renew the lease. It’s a fast food joint now.

When I moved here almost a decade ago, what struck me about Montreal was the way it seemed to resist the sameness that plagued so many North American cities. That feeling is harder to hold on to these days. Like many of my neighbours, I worry that the places that make Montreal feel like Montreal will close and die, and the city will become like everywhere else. After all, the decisions that shape Montreal’s future—what stays and what goes, what gets the lease or the loan or, yes, the collab—are often out of our hands.

We still have some choices left. The last time I went to Bernie Beigne, I left with two donuts: one a confectionery concoction with Nutella, the other a cinnamon sugar classic. The donuts were good, maybe the best the shop had to offer. But as good as they were, you won’t catch me waiting in that line again. I don’t live in Toronto anymore. ⁂

Jules Bugiel lives in Montreal. You can hear her on the radio on CKUT 90.3 FM.