Jean-Francois Bizalion in his store, where a car crashed Saturday into the now-boarded plate glass windows. Photo: Heather Bellow.
Great Barrington — It was a typical Saturday morning at Bizalion’s Fine Food. The faithful began arriving for their tartine, their croissant, their pain au chocolate, their coffee.
Yes, all was beautiful until one customer, attempting to park, drove smack through the plate-glass wall and into the store.
She still got her coffee, and lots of it.
“She was badly shaken,” said owner Jean-Francois Bizalion, standing amid shattered glass and car parts at what his wife and co-owner Helen Bizalion said they had left as a sort of insurance “crime scene.”
“We rescued her from the car,” he added, “brought her in and restored her to calm with several coffees.”
It happened at 9:15 a.m., and Jean-Francois says it is unclear — and he would not “speculate” — whether it was a defect in the Lexus she was driving or whether her foot might have slipped off the brake and onto the gas.
“Either a car defect or driver error,” he said, noting that this was a long-time customer who lives in New York City and has a house in nearby Connecticut.
A few laughs with loyal customers Monday helped as Bizalion’s Fine Foods deals with the aftermath of an accident at the store in which there were no injuries but lots of damage. From left: Stewart Rosen, Helen Bizalion, Jean-Francois Bizalion, Simon Winchester and Rupert Winchester. Photo: Heather Bellow.
It was a violent crash with no injuries. Mercifully no one had been sitting at the corner table where the car’s front end came to rest after blowing out the floor-to-ceiling glass.
“It was stressful,” Jean-Francois said.
Now the insurance merry-go-round beginneth.
“It’s an insurance learning curve,” Helen said, “with three different insurance claims.”
The Bizalions have seen an outpouring of support from the community and, given the relief no one was hurt, there have been plenty of jokes on social media and at the store, just to make this retail setback somewhat bearable.
“Oh no!” wrote Monterey General Store owner Scott Edward Cole on Bizalion’s Facebook post about the incident. “Some people will stop at nothing for drive thru service! I hope you’re back up and running soon!”
And on Monday, the corner of the store boarded up with Bizalion outside doing carpentry, a few of the devoted had come for lunch, not realizing what had happened.
More jokes were cracked.
The Lexus, driven by a longtime customer, crashed through the store Saturday around 9:15 a.m. Photo: Helen Bizalion.
“I want to eat lunch—this is no excuse,” said Sandisfield-based author Simon Winchester. He and his son, Rupert Winchester, had come by hoping for a nice sit-down. The “fois-gras obsessed,” as Winchester put it, will have to wait a week until the shop reopens.
Stewart Rosen, another of the Bizalion faithful, also stopped in. He and Jean-Francois fondly reminisced about a special terrine order Rosen had placed years ago.
But before Bizalion’s opens again, Jean-Francois said, the building will be inspected for structural safety.
Jean-Francois invited everyone inside to see the damage, and Winchester did a little shopping, the crunch of shattered plate glass underfoot.