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Advice on french regulations


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Hi all,

I want to add a small restaurant to our existing business and I want to understand the ins and outs beforehand. We would be catering for 6 to 12 people on a fixed menu basis and wouldn't be open to passing trade, only our customers.

My understanding is that you are either a restaurant or a restaurant and there is no separate rules for small establishments, however I have been to many rural auberges that did not seem to have expensive stainless steel kitchens nor anything else you would associate with the health and safety of a modern restaurant (thought I might be mistaken).

I understand that there are fire safety rules that must be followed but does anyone have advice on kitchen standards, will I be required to have stainless everything?

And as far as licensing is concerned, I believe it is only the serving of drinks which require a license, correct? I remember reading something about someone needing to attend a course when opening a restaurant, though this could have been for a higher grade license than 'petite restauration'.

Any help appreciated.
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So it looks like anyone wanting to include any form of alcohol with their meals now requires to take the 3 day course. Great.

I understand that the course can't be taken in english obviously, but does anyone know if you can take a translator along with you and what standard of french is required for the exam?

Is simply not serving alcohol an option and only applying for a grade I license? Has anyone gone down this route?

Thanks for any advice
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Okay, just read through NormanH's first link again and it seems to state that the Grade I license for non-alcoholic drinks is being removed. Now, can anyone with better french or experience tell me if this means that everyone will now need a grade II license for any drinks, or if you simply don't have to apply for a license any more if you only wish to sell soft drinks.

Did I mention ARGH.
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Hi Jimmy...this is going to be a long one!

Unless your existing business is a chambres d'hôtes, I don't think it matters that you are restricting your restaurant to only your customers. You will still need to register with the relevant authorities.

The best place to get information is from the department responsible for carrying out hygiene inspections - la Direction Départementale des Services Vétérinaires.

When we opened our restaurant we had to get their approval for the kitchen layout etc before we opened - even though the restaurant had been run by a previous owner.

Regarding surfaces etc - it's not as strict as you think. Tiled surfaces were okay, wooden surfaces not. But we went for IKEA stainless steel with wipe down cupboards - relatively inexpensive.

The onus for protecting the cold-chain etc is now on the shoulders of the restaurant owner which means lots of paperwork but as it is EU wide, you can find links to it in English online. Just search for HACCAP and it will give you an idea of what you have to do.

The bad news is that you will also have to do a course for the hygiene cert - microbiology and a hundred ways to poison your customers! The good news is that the Chambre de Commerce paid for it. They might also help you with the cost of the alcohol course.

And on that topic, I wouldn't advise you to go non-alcohol even if it is possible. Alcohol is where you make the most profit! So it's worth asking your mayor if he/she will consider giving you a grace period before you have to take the alcohol awareness course - to give you time to get your French up to scratch. I've known that happen.

Hope that helps - and yes I'm speaking from experience. 6 years running an auberge in the Pyrenees!

Good luck,

Julia

PS. NormanH's links are brilliant.
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Hi Jimmy, 

I am presuming you run a B&B, and want to add the possibility of providing evening meals for the B&B clients?

I have often stayed in B&Bs where I ate an evening meal, and the apero and wine were always included in the price of the meal (so presumably the owners were not technically "selling" the stuff). 

Don't know if this makes a difference to what sort of course you need to go on, but thought I'd mention it in case the distinction is important.   FWIW, the kitchens of these establishments looked like normal domestic ones, not a mass of scrubbed stainless steel.

Angela

EDIT:  Ah, I see a most informative post has popped in just before mine!

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Very helpful post Julia.

The hygiene course is news to me, however if I'm capable of doing the alcohol course I'm sure I'll be able to do that too. I was wanting to open this next year so I suppose I'd better try and learn as much french as I possibly can between now and then. Perhaps giving me a reason to really knuckle down and learn will be a silver lining.

Angela, the restaurant will supplement a fishing business, not a B&B. Besides, new B&B type businesses will need to do the course too now if they want to serve drinks.

Considering how many english run businesses could be affected by the change in regulations it would probably be useful if we could start a thread clarifying everything, as there seems to be differing opinions and very little practical advice on actually taking the course.
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Good luck with trying to clarify everything!! We have a chambres d'hotes and are with Gites de france. 2 years ago there was great consternation at a meeting when we were told we would all have to do a hygeine course if doing table d'hote regardless of how long we'd already been doing it. There was then a bit of backtracking when it was realised one could kill someone at breakfast as well as at dinner , but that was seen as the final straw for many B&B's to make everyone do a hygeine course. We are keeping our heads down until we're told what we must do, nothings been mentioned at any of the meetings since then. I think ,as usual, It depends on the area you're in and the vigilence of the powers that be.

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[quote user="JimmyEveriss"]Very helpful post Julia.

The hygiene course is news to me, however if I'm capable of doing the alcohol course I'm sure I'll be able to do that too. I was wanting to open this next year so I suppose I'd better try and learn as much french as I possibly can between now and then. Perhaps giving me a reason to really knuckle down and learn will be a silver lining.

Angela, the restaurant will supplement a fishing business, not a B&B. Besides, new B&B type businesses will need to do the course too now if they want to serve drinks.

Considering how many english run businesses could be affected by the change in regulations it would probably be useful if we could start a thread clarifying everything, as there seems to be differing opinions and very little practical advice on actually taking the course.[/quote]

Are you anticipating an exclusively English-speaking clientèle?

If not i would have thought that speaking French was essential...

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No Jimmy, you dont need anywhere that level of fluency but certainly the basics and a knowledge of the subject in hand and not to be frighetened to ask when you dont understand, courses like that are a great way of immersion learning, no you wont get 100% of it but you will get 100% more than if you dont do one!

As an aside it was your mention of practically fluent that made me post, I can no longer describe myself as practically fluent in my mother tongue, are/were any of us ever fluent?

My Fluency in French is probably double what it was a few years ago, I recently re-sat a course that I had done 2 years ago, yes it was easier to follow but then none of it was new this time, I looked at my notes from the previous time and found there were only a handfull of specialised words that I had noted to ask the meaning of during the breaks.

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That's good to know Chancer, I'm going to view this as a great reason and opportunity to get my french to a much higher standard.

I've been living here a good few years now, with my english partner, english family and spending time with our english customers! I suppose it's time something cropped up and spurred me into this.
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  • 3 years later...
Read this post earlier, and it felt just wrong to even question having to go on a hygiene course, and I would hope that the DDASS would do controles from time to time.

I used to know a couple who ran a b&b and fed their guests. She used to go mad about 'dirty' people, but in spite of her blind belief that she did no wrong......... she did some things I would never even do for my family. ie Double dipping, which I loathe and abhor and washing her hands was intermittent which is another thing which I detest people NOT doing.

I once asked her if she had taken insurance out in case she poisoned someone, and she was highly offended, however, as I pointed out, if some sea food was off, it was not her fault and yet the food would have come from her table..... she took out insurance and I was glad.

Ha yes, she came back from South America with an amoeba infection.... hmm and as I said, her handwashing was never as it should have been...... would you have been happy to eat her food.

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Handwashing will not prevent you from catching amoebic dysentary/Giardia/beaver fever, its picked up from contaminated water courses and pretty much every lake or Stream in the world is now infected mainly due to people defecating in the wilds, I got it from a pure mountain Stream at close to 5000m altitude in the Andes.

 

And another time from the lac bleu at Arras, my médecin was very impressed that I went to him with the diagnosis and what I wanted him to prescribe, he was sceptical at first and would you believe it consulted Google on his computer [:-))] before saying that i was probably right, then I let rip with an uncontrollable "explosive flatulence" a keynote symptom and he was in no further doubt. 

 

 

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Double dipping is if you say, take a spoon or your fingers and dip into food, then eat from the spoon or lick your fingers  and then dip the same finger /spoon back in the pan. Alright if on one's own, but why would anyone want my saliva in with their food, or me want theirs.......... I don't.

And amoeba, well, as the lady in question did not wash her hands when having been to the WC, so she could spread the infection. Simply put, it can easily spread with poor personal hygiene, especially by food handlers and no one deserves that!

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I'm really not sure if the parasite can be transferred from hand to hand or mouth contact, it lives in water waiting to infect the bowels of its next victim, you need to drink the water or in my case in the lake it was no more than the water on my dive regulator mouthpiece, I didnt knowingly swallow any.

 

Beavers are the main transferrer of the parasite.

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