After almost 28 years in business, Barbary Fig on Grand Avenue is closing for good after its final service on Monday.
Combine this with the recent closing of the Big 10 Restaurant on University Avenue and my biographical bar hopping tour has gotten a significantly shorter.
Owner Brahim Hadj-Moussa, 61, said it’s just time for him to get out.
Hadj, who speaks three languages, is from “Algeria via France.” His family lived in both countries.
In this era of immigration controversy, it’s good to be reminded of a success story. At least it was a success for the host country. Mr Hadj on the other hand …
Hadj said the scratch cooking part of owning the Mediterranean restaurant was his favorite, but “that’s only 10 percent of owning a restaurant. The other 90 percent is managing the people and the building. That 90 percent sucks, sometimes royally. I want to live a little. I haven’t done anything but go to work, come home from work, think about work and go back to work for all these years.”
Ah, the American dream.
I think it’s only fair to provide full disclosure for all of our new immigrants going forward and I suggest we add a little something that inscription on the base of the Statue of Liberty:
Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!
Just be prepared go to work, come home from work, think about work and go back to work. Sometimes it sucks, royally.
