Best Comedy Shows in Montreal: The Complete Guide
Looking for the Best Comedy Show in Montreal? Here's Our Complete Guide
Montreal is a thriving city with an amazing comedy scene. It's home to the biggest comedy festival in the world, Just For Laughs, which draws close to two million visitors every July with hundreds of shows across dozens of downtown venues. But JFL is only three weeks out of the year. The other forty-nine weeks, Montreal's comedy scene runs on a mix of established comedy clubs and a growing crop of independent producers putting on shows at bars, restaurants, and neighbourhood haunts across the city.
If you're trying to figure out where to actually go see standup in Montreal — tonight, this weekend, or on a random Tuesday — here's our honest, no-fluff guide to the clubs and producers keeping the city laughing.
Montreal Comedy Clubs in English
The Comedy Nest
The Comedy Nest is Montreal's original English-language comedy club, and it has the history to prove it. Founded by Ernie Butler in 1979 and tucked into the third floor of the old Montreal Forum, it's been a launching pad for names like Norm Macdonald, Jim Carrey, and Russell Peters, and it remains an official Just For Laughs festival venue to this day. With a 140-seat cabaret setup, candle-lit tables, and a full bar, it's got the polish of a real club — and the reputation to match, having been voted Montreal's best in CultMTL's readers' poll for years running.
The lineups lean toward touring headliners who've appeared on Netflix, late night TV, and Comedy Central, alongside a rotating slate of local talent. Newbie Tuesdays and Comedy Lab Wednesdays are the spot for new material and cheaper tickets, while weekends bring the bigger names. The one real catch: it's inside a shopping and entertainment complex, so don't go in expecting a standalone club vibe — you're there for the show, not the surroundings.
3rd Floor Comedy Club
Younger and scrappier than the Comedy Nest, 3rd Floor Comedy Club opened above Stogies Cigar Lounge on Crescent Street in the fall of 2021, founded by comedian Josh Shapiro. It filled a real gap in the scene: many of Montreal's regular rooms had gone quiet during the pandemic, and Shapiro built a black-box, no-frills 50-seat room specifically for comedians to develop material. It's grown into a full weekly slate, from Sunday's show-up-go-up open mic to the Friday-night Secret Show and the Saturday pro showcase.
What sets it apart is that it's run by a comedian, for comedians. The booking philosophy is built around giving performers real stage time rather than just chasing the biggest name on the poster. It's an intimate, low-frills room, which is exactly the appeal if you want to feel close to the stage rather than watching from the back of a big house.
Montreal Comedy Clubs in French
Le Bordel Comédie Club
Le Bordel is arguably the most influential comedy club Quebec has ever had. It opened in April 2015 in a former brothel in the Quartier Latin (hence the name), founded by a group of the province's biggest comedy names: Louis-José Houde, Mike Ward, Martin Petit, François Bellefeuille, Laurent Paquin, and Charles Deschamps. It was, by most accounts, the first true comedy club in Quebec, built on the New York/LA model of nightly surprise line-ups rather than single-headliner shows.
Ten years and a second room later (it expanded to a two-venue complex in 2022), Le Bordel runs shows nearly every night of the week — the flagship Comédie Club format, where five comedians perform without their names announced in advance, alongside open mics and rodage nights where comics test out new hours. It's consistently named the top spot for French standup in Montreal, and for good reason: with that many high-profile founders and a decade of history, the talent density on any given night is hard to beat.
Le Terminal Comédie Club
Le Terminal sits above a resto-bar on Mont-Royal Avenue East in the Plateau, and it was built specifically to give comedians an ideal space to develop material — a neighbourhood room rather than a downtown tourist stop. It runs a mix of formats: Sunday open mics, the Thursday/Friday "Stand Up" showcases where a host brings up a handful of comedians (including grads of the École nationale de l'humour testing new sets), and solo shows from artists working out a full hour. Reviewers consistently point to the cozy, intimate size and the food from the bar downstairs as part of the draw — this is a place where the room feels like a neighbourhood hangout that happens to have great comedy, not a tourist-oriented club.
Local Producers Hosting Comedy Shows at Montreal Bars and Restaurants
Not every good comedy show in Montreal happens inside a dedicated club. A growing number of independent producers are building shows inside bars, pubs, and restaurants across the city — and this is where things get interesting, because the quality and consistency vary a lot more than at an established club with a full-time venue and staff.
Introducing Laugh It Off MTL
This is where we'll be honest about who we are: Laugh It Off MTL is a Montreal-based standup comedy production company. Unlike a single-room club, we run shows across a rotating roster of independent venues around the city, in both English and French — a deliberate choice to bring comedy into neighbourhoods and rooms that don't already have a weekly show, rather than concentrate everything in one downtown spot.
On any given week you might catch The Canal Comedy Show along the Lachine Canal at Memento, a free monthly show at Honey Martin in NDG, a Tuesday open mic at Lord William Pub in Griffintown, The Weekend Wrap-Up at B Hive Social Club (co-produced with MTLOL.CA), or El Secreto beneath Casa Galicia with The Sound Society.
The real selling point is the mix: we run everything from open mics to fully curated pro shows, bringing together some of Montreal's best local comedians alongside visiting comics, and we do it at some of the city's best and most unique spots. So you're not just getting a good comedy show — you get to discover the city's best spots through laughter. Check our upcoming shows to find the one that's right for you.
MTLOL.ca
MTLOL runs weekly comedy nights at Burgundy Lion in Little Burgundy and previously at Peel Pub downtown before that room closed. The Burgundy Lion show happens Wednesdays at 8-9pm, hosted by Erik Intrevado, with free entry and a one-drink minimum, mixing comedy veterans with up-and-comers and offering a handful of open mic slots each week for aspiring comedians. It's a solid, no-cover option if you're already the type to spend a Wednesday night in a pub — casual, low-stakes, and easy to wander into without planning ahead.
Canadian Comedy Cartel
The Canadian Comedy Cartel (CCC) bills itself as being run A-to-Z by comedians — the artists behind the logos and posters, the sound tech, and the bookers are all working Montreal standups. Started from scratch, it's grown into a network of English-language shows spread across multiple downtown venues, including regular nights at the 3rd Floor Comedy Club and its affiliated open mics, plus late-night and dirty-comedy slots like the World's Smallest Comedy Night at Hurley's on Crescent Street. The Cartel also runs its own summer festival, the World's Smallest Comedy Festival, each July as a counter-program to Just For Laughs.
The pitch is straightforward: comedian-curated shows, no subject off limits, and a real emphasis on giving audiences a sense of being part of the show rather than just watching one. If you like your comedy a little rawer and don't mind a downtown bar setting over a proper club room, the Cartel's rotating lineup of shows is worth tracking.
So, Where Should You Actually Go?
Honestly? If you want to discover Montreal one great comedy night at a time — in a mix of the city's most unique bars and restaurants, with lineups that range from open mics to fully curated pro showcases featuring some of the city's best local comedians alongside visiting talent — Laugh It Off MTL is the easiest way in. We're not trying to be a single room you memorize the address of; we're trying to be the reason you finally check out that spot in your neighbourhood you've been meaning to try, with a great show as the excuse.
That said, the clubs and producers above are all doing real, worthwhile things for this city's comedy scene, and if you want a polished big-name club experience, The Comedy Nest or Le Bordel will deliver it. If you want to feel close to comedians actively developing their sets, 3rd Floor Comedy Club or Le Terminal are great picks. And if you're looking for a reliable weekly pub night, Comedy on Mackay or MTLOL.ca have that covered.
Check our upcoming shows to see what's on this week, and come find out why more Montrealers are discovering their new favourite comedy night in a room they didn't expect.