Toulouse: the end of a family saga for the Louchebem restaurant
After seventy-five years of loyalty to the Victor-Hugo market, the Deschamps family sells the restaurant Le Louchebem and turns the page on this great adventure.
On March 31, the restaurant Le Louchebem (which means the butcher in slang), located on the first floor of the Victor-Hugo market, changes hands. Opened in 1994 by Jean-Philippe Deschamps and Martine, his wife, this business was then managed by their son Mathieu, while their daughter Caroline flew on her own and ran Le Louchebem de Caro in Saint-Alban.
“Today is the end of the adventure, admit Jean-Philippe and Mathieu. On March 31, the market restaurant as well as the one on rue Bayard will be sold to become La cantine du Louchebem”.
“We must avoid nostalgia and look ahead”
A family saga started in 1947 by the two branches of the family who then did not know each other: Emile and Elise Boubes, Martine’s grandparents, opened a poultry box at the Victor-Hugo market, then taken over by her parents, Armand and Genevieve Boubes. “The same year my parents, Gilbert and Josette Deschamps created a butcher’s lodge”, says Jean-Philippe Deschamps, who at 17 had joined his parents before taking over the business on his own in 1981 and becoming a poultry butcher. “Our two families and the two activities were brought together by my marriage to Martine”.
Today, by selling these restaurants, Mathieu returns to the sources of the family profession by launching into the composition of baskets of producers to offer meat and poultry and vegetables in short circuit with an authentic taste.
Josette, the mother of Jean-Philippe, five times great-grandmother, always on the bridge at the market and alert despite the years, has a twinge in her heart to leave this place where memories jostle: following the example of this evening, where to celebrate the victory of the Stadium, she danced on the tables of the restaurant. “This market was where it should be,” she says. We have welcomed so many celebrities (Nougaro, Compagnie Créole) and sportsmen”. Josette with multiple passions (ballroom dancing, gardening, painting and her family), admits: “I had some good years. I will take care of it differently”. For the Deschamps, the ledger refers to the Victor-Hugo market, “one must avoid nostalgia and look ahead”.