The curtain remained drawn for a week. Patricia Tomaz wanted to rearrange, clean, stock. The new boss of the Maison de la presse, in the heart of Thionville, has bought the business. Her face, her smile, her wavy hair are known to regulars, she had been employed there for a good year. At 52, like all winners, she tried her luck. Except that chance has nothing to do with his success.
Patricia Tomaz grew up there. His parents ran a tobacco bar in Algrange for almost twenty years. “I was 16 when they opened it,” she remembers. The teenager didn’t cut it. She worked there. The pace was steady: “From 5 a.m. until 10 p.m. sometimes, six days a week…” The attachment to the counter and to the customers is real. But Patricia did not want to take over the family business, with her little sister, when her parents stopped.
Aged around thirty, she chose to take care of her three boys. The business and the building are sold. She moves to Terville. “It’s hard when from one day to the next, you no longer see people all the time,” she remembers.
A business like no other
Patricia became a school life assistant for disabled students for eight years. And her past ends up catching up with her. She works in tobacco shops in the area. She is hired in Thionville in 2022. She knows the machines, the games, the press, the customers. It’s not a business like any other. “You have to know how to manage a certain audience, manage yourself, and not be stepped on. »
Nine months ago, her husband visited the premises. The lease includes the rental of the entire building, 600 m2 in total. The former boss makes a proposal to buy back the fund. The ex-employee doesn’t realize it, thinks about it. And gets started. Her husband, Joaquim, a practicing accountant, is her partner. She is the one who has been running the shop, six days a week, since the beginning of September. “We sleep five hours a night. » The voice is hoarse. Behind his glasses, his eyes are small but his expression is happy. “I’ve dreamed of doing this for a long time,” she confesses. Health problems have long prevented her from planning ahead. Today, she takes on this challenge as a family, buoyed by the support of her husband and her three sons, aged 16 to 25. “We are hard workers, go-getters,” smiles Patricia Tomaz.
She revisited the store. The checkouts are now just a stone’s throw from the space where she stores and delivers the packages. Confectionery is making a comeback on the shelves, as are electronic payment and telephone items and other tax stamps. It plans to expand the time slots, capture the lunch break clientele and the return of cross-border commuters. It retains the very wide range of newspapers and magazines, common to the Press Houses. The tobacconist has trained. She employs her two former colleagues as well as an apprentice. “I work non-stop. » This time, it was she who chose him.
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