Interview with Alain Borrel, French Immigration in the 1950s, History 150H Spring 2024, Conducted by Timothy Balon, March 14, 2024

Overview 

It is the late 1940s in France right after the end of WWII the country is in a full rebuild and people are on the move. The collapse of Nazi Germany left many French citizens to move around the country in search of a new life after the war. While many of these families move on some have to take a different plan of action and begin that new life elsewhere. From avoiding selected service to being an ice cream man, the ways to make money in this new era of social change has a lot of challenges in store for anyone caught in the mix. 

 

These challenges are exactly what Alain Borrel faced when he was a young man in France. He was living in between France and Montreal, Canada until the age of 13 when he made the full switch to Montreal. In his youth Alain did many things to earn money. Anything from doing prep work in his fathers restaurant to working in the scrap yard. This diverse background left lots of room for the social changes in his life to be constantly changing. Although he did find his calling within the kitchen, Alain has lots of insight on the challenges of a French immigrant in America in the 1960s. Not only can he share his story but he’s also able to share the lessons learned along the way but he can also share advice that was learned through first hand experience and events. 

Bio

Alain Borrel  immigrated from France to Canada and then later to America as a chef working in family restaurants. He was born in 1953 in Avignon, France where he lived until he was 14 when he and his family moved to Montreal, Canada. After staying in Montreal he later moved to Washington for a short stint. Later moving to Key West, Florida. Where he then stayed until he moved to Northern Virginia and opening L’Auberge Provincial. 

Transcript

Timmy Balon 0:00
Hi, I’m Timmy Balon. I’m interviewing Alain Borrel and his experiences with immigration and social change throughout the restaurant demographic. So say

Alain Borrel 0:13
Okay. Oh, my name is Alain Borrel. I’m from Avion, south of France, moved to North America when my, when my parents moved here first and moved here in outside of Montreal in 1955. And I joined them in 1956. For about a year or two, I would go back and forth from France into Canada was stay a year in Canada go back to France for a couple of years. I did that to the age of 13. And then at the age of 13, then I stayed in Canada that with my parents, my parents said, a restaurant in

Guzman, which was manufactured at Apple country of, of Quebec, the province of Quebec that is, and so they open up a low bass port on salmon, which is that’s where I got the name. There’s a sign right here. That’s for my dad’s original, original one from 1965. It looks like Yeah. And so anyway, we decided to move to United States to Key West Florida. But before that, before we move, my mother had a car accident, and when I was 14, and she she died in a car accident. But we still my father and I, we still move to Key West, in 1967. moved there and my, my father opened up a restaurant in Key West, which was called Louie style, which is the name of a poet of South of France, and the name of a wind that follows the Rhone neuron valley from from Switzerland all the way to the Mediterranean. And so anyway, I worked there with him. And then, at the age of 17, I left I did all kinds of odd jobs. I didn’t want to be in the restaurant anymore. And it was I was born and raised by my grandparents in France at a hotel, which goes back to my great grandparents. So it’s they bought they used to have a tradition. Yeah, one of the keys to our son, he’s fifth generation, fifth generation. So anyway, we, we, my great grandparents had the liquor wine store, and there was a hotel for sale actually was to hotel facility in downtown having only bought one of them. And then as a child, I was raised there. And like I was saying before it was back and forth from from one France to Canada when I would, I was staying in a hotel. And that would go to my other grandparents to which I’m half French, half Armenian. So my other side was our meaning grandparents. And so it was a great childhood, great, great job of being in the hotel business from the get go. And then seeing another culture to which was the Armenian culture which you know, is very, very, very dear to me. And so anyway, you know, we moved to the United States with the Key West, I worked for my dad, I left when I was 17. And then at the age of 19, I went to work for my grant my uncle in Vermont, who had a restaurant he was looking for Chef because that 19 not really a chef, I needed help. We needed a cook you know, and and I said, Well, I’ll think about it and then I thought about it for a week and I said yes, and so I went back to today in the restaurant business at the age of 19. And then worked for him for a couple years and loved it was in a skier it was in sugar bush. So I used to ski for an hour before I went to work and then ski right to the kitchen quite the life there. And then stayed here for a couple of years like I said and bought a brand new van and travel were less one was closed for six weeks after the snow season. And then I took advantage of that and went around the United States acquired brand new and bought a brand new van I’m going around the United States. And I stopped in Kirkland outside Seattle, a very good friend that opened up a French restaurant. And he was from my hometown of Avenue. And his father had a hotel, a block and a half from my grandfather’s hotel.

Timmy Balon 5:21
What are the chances of that?

Alain Borrel 5:24
We knew that we’re all friends. And so and so I stopped by, of course, to say hi to him. Next thing you know, he’s looking for, you know, Chef, he’s like, wow, yeah, that sounds pretty good. You know, it was good. I said, Okay, so, continue my, my vacation, and then went back to Vermont, and gave my seven months notice, which I thought was fair, right. In those days, very difficult. Even today, still difficult, it was very difficult to find somebody to work in the kitchen, that can do the job, you know, so I lived there for a year, but the weather was, you know, this just rains so much in the winter, it’s kind of fun the first three months because it’s, you know, unusual to see that much rain. But, you know, after three months,

Timmy Balon 6:13
Its hard to not get too depressed.

Alain Borrel 6:17
And then I had a business opportunity go back to Key West. So I thought it was a good idea. Why don’t you know, be nice to go back and, you know, be older

Timmy Balon 6:30
Get away from the rain and colder

Alain Borrel 6:34
by the partners with my father, you know, at this restaurant, which was called Chez Emile, you know, that’s my father’s first name. And I said, Well, that sounds great. So, move to Key West, and was partnered with my dad for a few years. And eventually, I bought him out. Stay down there, open up another restaurant, I had two restaurants. And then I had two houses for apartments. An airplane by the time I was 25. But that’s, you know, hard work and being blessed to be united states of America, giving you an opportunity to be able to do this, you know, and, of course, it’s not given to you and you got to work out. And they work worked out really well. And, I was down there for a total of while including when I first time moved to Key West with my dad and coming back and it was a total of 13 years. And then afterwards, while I’m at Celeste, you know, we got married in Key West. And then we decided to move you know, so I sold the two businesses and sold four apartments kept one house and which was right next to the cemetery and Key West, which was great because it was quite a spot in town didn’t have tourists down you know, so yeah, it’s, it’s like New Orleans, downtown area. So it was a nice spot to be it was the only open space I can see a beautiful sunset, you know, and perfect spot. It was great. It was very quiet. And so we decided to to move and we had met somebody from Berryville Virginia, I think he was that person was dating my father’s ex wife sister. And so they were telling us all about you know, the area of Virginia of course Northern Virginia. You know, the oh we need a restaurant at the time. And I said well you know that’s like to come and visit and see you know, so we had our plane so we we flew but we didn’t make it up to here because of a big storm that was in the middle of Florida so we didn’t make it too far from Key West. And we were there for like two days you know, and then we went to the movies, whatever. And then I said well let’s take a regular airline, you know, so we just flew to Washington DC and we saw the you know the area we really liked it. And so we decided that of course there was a month of May which is a beautiful month you know, perfect.

Timmy Balon 9:36
Everything’s colors

Alain Borrel 9:38
Happy. Winter was over. And so anyway, we decided to to move from Key West. So because we were thinking of other places to we had looked in in Kentucky was in Lexington, Kentucky, outside of Lexington, Kentucky, but in those states now I’m talking about 44 years ago, most of the counties in Kentucky at that time were dry. [Non alchoholic towns] You know, he was like he saw kind of made it difficult for me to have, you know, actual wine licensed restaurants. So, and then we looked before that in Colorado and Steamboat Springs, that’s where that’s where we got our, where we went to our honeymoon, which is beautiful area. But we didn’t want to be that far from the ocean. Because you know, the ocean, and once you get that sand between your toes, you know, it’s hard to kick off. So want to be close enough so we can drive to to to the ocean. So anyway, we we decided to move here. So we packed everything up, that was the month of August. So we had a few months to, you know, before that in Key West and went to visit relatives and friends. And so we moved here in the end of August, packed up the car and big truck, Packed up the two to cats. [Pesh and Cali] And then we made it up here and we started looking for place. It took us a few months. And then we have bought a place outside of lovettsville before we bought this, but the people decided that they were getting divorced anyway. And it wasn’t going to be it was going to be an ugly situation. So after five weeks, they decided that while she decided that she didn’t want to sell it anymore, and that’s okay, you don’t want to fine. I don’t want to argue with you give me my money back by deposit anyway. So then, you know, so what are we doing now? You know, so we, we found this place while through a friend was a real estate agnet. A gentleman and he says, Wow, I got this, this place here that’s just came up on the market. So if you’re interested, we’ll go and take a look at it. So we came over and said well its got potentials. You know, this is the house we are sitting in right now we’re the Inn is. [Laburge Provencale] And this one sounds pretty good. And the price was right. I mean, it did need a lot of work inside outside. But he could see that they could be, you know, a potential of being, you know, having the restaurant first and then a country in, which was our plan from the get go. But, you know, it didn’t have the permits for you know, it’s not commercial, but a special use permit. So we had to go through the planning commission. And we wrote with our friend who was the lawyer in Berryville. When we met in Key West, you know, he helped us out. Write, the amendment for country is because they didn’t have so you can just open the country in and without proper

Timmy Balon 13:13
paperwork.

Alain Borrel 13:14
Yeah, paperwork, what does a country in represent? You know, so we had to put that down. And we had to know what the people felt like, you know, as far as how many rooms and, you know, you didn’t want to have be something that’s too big. So we wrote it, and it was accepted by the planning commission. But we got turned down when was our turn about the location. So we were kind of disappointed, you know, and other people too. So some of our friends that we mentioned, made some friends here, got some of the people from the county and together and went to the Board of Supervisors when we had that meeting. So on one side, and we had to switch room, we had to go to the courthouse, which was much bigger. So it was I might be off by a dozen or two people but it was a good 200 people there.

Timmy Balon 14:14
courtroom is over in Berryville? Yeah, Ive been there once or twice.

Alain Borrel 14:19
is pretty was pretty packed in there. And people even standing, you know. So we went in front of the board of supervisors, and they reversed what the planning commission had decided. So we were accepted. So we went through all that and we had to go back and all the planning commission, but it was just formalities, you know, so it took a few more weeks, but it then was accepted. So we were able to get a license to open a country in restaurant first we started as a restaurant. We had to do a lot of renovation and did a lot of myself And then we were able to do rooms like two years later, start with four, and save every penny, we could, you know, every dollar we made, went back into business. So eventually we were able to expand to what it is today. You know, it took a while to do all this expansion, you know, they were different expansion at different times. And every time you got to go back to the Planning Commission, which is what is supposed to be done. So we want to make sure it was done the way it was supposed to be, according to the regulations. And then it was accepted quite a few times. And then now we have 11 rooms were allowed up to 15 rooms were first started, we’re only allowed 10. Now we’re up to about 15. Took took 43 years to get to that. You know, we’re fairly successful. I mean, we we had, you know, many stories to say about all the different people that have been here. Yeah. And so it’s, and we raised the family. As you know, the American dream. Yeah. So we have a granddaughter, so everything’s fine. So no complaints.

Timmy Balon 16:21
Yeah, of course, trying to backtrack a little bit here. You have to tell us about what life was like in France prior to the initial move. We’re moving back and forth, or if there was any?

Alain Borrel 16:34
I was born in Paris house, and my parents eloped to Paris. When they were very young, you know, early 20s. And I was born in Paris, and then my father got drafted. So we went back to Avignon, where there’s a army camp there, they usually try to  move near the camps in those days, when they, when you have to do your service.

 

Citations

Interview with Alain Borrel , History 150 Spring 2024, Conducted by Timmy Balon , March 14, 2024.