Ellicott City restaurateur Fernand Tersiguel dies
Fernand G.M. Tersiguel, the French chef whose first Ellicott City restaurant opened 45 Bastille Days ago, died Friday, his family said in a post on the restaurant’s website and Facebook page.
The native of Brittany operated first Cafe Fernand and then the current Tersiguel’s French County Restaurant, reopening and relocating after multiple floods and other disasters before turning over the business to his son, Michel Tersiguel.
He was “well known and loved by many for his joyous celebrations of family, friends, soccer and football, and his French heritage,” said the post, signed by his widow, Odette; his son and daughter-in-law, Michel and Angie; and their sons, Lucas and Landon.
Fernand Tersiguel and his wife opened Cafe Fernand on Ellicott City’s Main Street on Bastille Day 1975. Several months later, Hurricane Eloise swept through, flooding the Main Street. The restaurant reopened and operated until 1984, when it was destroyed by a fire.
The Tersiguels moved the restaurant to Baltimore for a time, but eventually returned to Ellicott City. Relocating to higher ground on Main Street, the family opened Tersiquel’s French Country Restaurant in 1990.
Michel Tersiguel eventually took the business and operates it today.
The restaurant was damaged in the devastating floods of July 2016 and May 2018 but reopened. This March, it suspended operations along with other restaurants as part of the shutdown to curtail the spread of the coronavirus.
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