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Friends pitch in to keep bakery open
By HARLAN WEIKLE
| Article published on Wednesday, Dec. 30, 2009 |
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![[Image]](/content_images/123009_bee-01.jpg) |
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| Valery de Marchi, left, discusses plans to save her bakery with friend and supporter Sheri Lovely of Largo. |
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INDIAN ROCKS BEACH – Two weeks after it was to close, Café de Paris remains open for business as usual, thanks to friends of the owners Valerie and Xavier de Marchi.
Earlier this month the de Marchis, who are French citizens, were denied a routine application to renew their business visa and told they would have to close their bakery and leave the United States within 90 days.
The family has operated the bakery at 2300 Gulf Blvd. since 2003 and returned earlier this month from Paris where they had traveled to apply at the American Embassy for a renewal of their E-2 Treaty Investor Visa; the application was subsequently denied and their visa revoked.
New tourist visas good for three months were issued to the family including one for their son, Luigi, a junior at Seminole High School. The de Marchis had to forfeit the return portion of their round trip airfare purchased under the original visa and purchase new round trip tickets for their return tickets to France in March.
The letter denying their business visa said simply the business was found to be “marginal.”
Friends and customers immediately began a campaign to help the de Marchis win public support for an appeal to the embassy’s decision. The group known simply as Friends of the Café de Paris have collected 2,200 signatures from customers as well as visitors online who support their cause.
Perhaps most powerful support they’ve received has been on the job. Under provisions of their visa the couple is allowed to maintain the business as non-resident foreign visitors, however they may not actually work. The ‘Friends” have for the interim become volunteer cashiers, servers and a friendly face behind the cup of hot coffee and croissant that residents and visitors alike appreciate as part of the experience when visiting the shop.
But the truth, say their supporters, is that the Café de Paris is not just a bakery, it is a small slice of France in their community.
Earlier this summer Xavier de Marchi talked of his passion for artisanal French baking. Learning the art of baking in the French tradition is a commitment that begins at a young age and continues throughout one’s life de Marchi explained. Journeymen bakers begin an apprenticeship that may last years before they are qualified to hold a masters certificate; de Marchi has such a certificate displayed proudly on the wall at Café de Paris. He is currently passing his knowledge on to their single employee, Rosie.
One result of the visa modification that is particularly upsetting to the family is the possibility that their son, Luigi, may have to interrupt his junior year at Seminole and transfer to a school in France.
“It’s a difficult time to leave,” said Valerie. “Here he has friends and his classes, the teachers that are so important at his age. I do not want him to have to leave all that behind.”
The de Marchi’s have a lawyer, William Flynn of Fowler White Boggs in Tampa; they are hopeful that an appeal will ultimately succeed in reversing the State Department’s original decision.
In the meantime the coffee is still hot and the croissants served fresh daily as customers and friends work side by side to keep their little bit of France alive and baking.
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Article published on Wednesday, Dec. 30, 2009
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