This paper focuses on the political and social history of the Algerian shops in the colonial and metropolitan context of the period from the 1920s to the 1950s. Based on recent or rediscovered historiographical surveys, as well as uninvestigated archives (Archives de la Seine, Prefecture de Police de Paris), the author scrutinizes the restaurant trade in particular. She demonstrates how Algerian immigration is controlled by both public and private bodies (police, public authorities, employers, Algerian shopkeepers and nationalists), which pursue different goals and use different methods. Private restaurants, lunch stalls in hostels or employers’ lunch stalls are the rival places for catering for and controlling Algerian migrants.