the sad demise of L'Equipe bar, Courchevel 1850
One of the all time classic season worker bars, The Equipe in Courchevel 1850, has served its last vodka shot.
This will be sad news to the thousands of season workers who have partied, boozed and snogged there across the years and Natives could not let such an occasion go without a tribute a bar which was as much a part of doing a winter season as banoffee pie...
History | Pictures | What's new for 2001
Comment: Mitch Miller | Philly Waygood | Helen Onions | Alex Irwin | The Man in the Street
The Equipe had been a bar since 1946, when it was started up by the racer, Jean Blanc, one of the founders of Courchevel. He passed it over to the Tournier family as he was too busy running ski shops and being in the French team to deal with serving pastis.
That was when the Equipe or L'Equipe started as a bar. Through to the early-90s it remained a high class establishment, pulling in the ritzy TV and local celebrities that Courchevel is famous for. However the gloss faded and Devon-based operator Ski Val took over the property and ran the bar as well as the next door Hotel Tournier, both of which soon established themselves as firm favourites with season workers.
Mitch Miller managed the Equipe from 94-98. 'Even when we took it over, plenty needed to be done,' Mitch told Natives. We worked very hard at turning it into one of the most popular bars in Courchevel.'
One of Mitch's masterstrokes was buying up the infamous gondola that sat in one corner. 'It was one of the old Vizelle bubbles that we managed to liberate before it was exported to India,' Mitch told us. 'We had to take it apart and move it through the window to get it in.
'We had loads of fun with it though - how many people can you get in? I hate to think. What has happened in it that I don't know about? I hate to think even more!!!'
Philly Waygood worked in the Tournier and Equipe from 98-00. 'The end of L'Equipe means that there is a gap to be filled in 1850, and there is no where of a similar size which can hold so many drunken idiots at the same time!!! '
' I think all the staff who have worked and drunk in L'Equipe
will have many happy memories and stories to tell, especially
of debaucherous behaviour - Rob Arthur baring all for more
than just a few moments is just one of them!'
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Helen Onions has been in Courchevel for seven seasons and remembers the great L'Equipe foam parties of 1995/6: 'That really was a great era with the regulars of Mitch, Murray, Rosie, Jugs Jules, Lex, Hoops, Olivier, PASCAL, the liz martin (former), Fred, Paul Andrews (ham & cheese sandwiches), bimbo, Chris chef, Richard sous-chef onto Isba barman, Dippy Dave, cameraman, Carrie and Jamie...'
Alex Irwin, editor of the Courchevel Enquirer, went up to see the destruction during the summer and provided the pictures: 'I have seen the destruction of a place I have called my local for half of every year for the past three years. Okay it probably did need demolishing, but instead of rebuilding as another hotel and bar, it is being replaced by yet another overpriced piano bar that caters for the sort of people who can afford to spend 80ff on a beer.'
The Man in the Street: Natives talked to many Courchevel workers putting this article together and the general feeling was one of sadness, but celebration. The theme that came out more often then anything was happiness and thanks...to those who made L'Equipe what it was - Mitch and Rosy, last year Steve and Steve, all the bar-staff over the years who put in the hard work 6 nights a week for five long, but fun months and of course, the punters.
Natives would like to say thanks on behalf
of all season workers
to those involved in creating some great memories!
