While the rest of the world has bodegas, 7-Elevens, and convenience stores, here in Quebec we have “le dépanneur.”
These little corner stores sprinkled throughout the province sell just about everything from beer to toilet paper, fresh produce, cheap sunglasses, and crummy laser pointers. And while the term is commonplace within the vocabulary of Quebecers, most outsiders — and locals — have no idea what it means.
View this post on Instagram
To add to the confusion, the word means something completely different in Europe. For example, dépanneurs in France are the titles given to people who repair things like cars and appliances for a living.
- You might also like:
- Saint-Jean-Baptiste: How a Catholic holiday became one of Quebec patriotism
- Stereotypes about Montreal that are simply not true
- 10 "Franglais" slang terms that only make sense in Montreal
So, how exactly did this unique French-Canadian term come to be?
It all started five decades ago. According to Judith Lussier, author of the book Sacré dépanneur! the first depanneur was born by chance in 1970 after a small grocery store owner took advantage of a new piece of legislation that granted “small merchants” with two employees, the exclusive privilege of opening weeknights and weekends.
Paul-Émile Maheu, the store’s owner, decided to modify his little market so that it would operate more efficiently for the newly extended hours. And pretty soon Le Dépanneur Saint-Zotique was born.
According to the new law, he had the right to sell beer after business hours (5 pm), making Maheu’s the only store in town allowed to do so. As word spread, his little market quickly became the most popular spot on the block.
Legend has it that Maheu’s store and the countless ones that followed were referred to as Dépanneurs after adopting and modifying the French verb “Dépanner,” which means to “help out of difficulty” or “troubleshoot” as a blanket term for the newly conceived convenience stores.
According to en-academic.com, the term made its way into the Oxford Dictionary in 2015 and is also widely used in by Franco Ontarians and Acadians in the provinces of Ontario and New Brunswick.
While the term continues to grow in popularity, more often than not it’s shortened to “dép” by locals.
Essentially in Quebec, if you hear someone referring to it as anything but a “dép” or “dépanneur,” it’s a tell-tale sign they’re not from la belle province.
Now, time for a slush puppy.
Follow Channels and Categories