As regular readers of this blog know, my wife and I have a
little apartment in the center of old Paris to which we go several times a
year. The apartment is half a block from Place Maubert and right in the middle
of the Place is our café, Le Metro. My favorite activity in Paris is simply to
sit in the café with a glass of wine or cup of coffee and watch the world go
by. Our most recent visit was scheduled for late February and early March just
as the virus hit. Ever cautious, I canceled the trip and what with one thing
and another it may be a year before we can again go to Paris. Our best friend
there, who lived several blocks from us, gave me the terrible news a month or
more ago that the owners of the café had gone belly up and that it would
reopen, if at all, without any of the old familiar people whom I have grown
over the years to love.
Yesterday, I received a cheery message. The scuttlebutt in
the quartier was false! The café will
reopen in September under the old management and the person there whom I like
the most, Gaèlle, who is in charge of the waitstaff, will be on hand to greet
us. I googled three or four of my favorite restaurants and they all seem to
have survived the shutdown as well. Not major world shattering news, of course,
but a balm for my soul in these troubled times.
Here is a picture of Gaèlle:
I know what you mean; my little village of Bellagio is not dissimilar. Heroic in a way. So nice to see familiar faces return and assume their community duties although I envy your situation there.
ReplyDeleteTardy as my next comment is, I thought Susan's comment, "I am very unhappy" - was heroic too. I am reminded by one psychiatrist's admonition, "Learn to say 'ouch' and express the hurt." Given Susan's predicament, it must have been quite difficult for her to confront the physician but she did - not only responsibly and appropriately but heroically. What is this but not activism! As we say here, Brava!
"My favorite activity in Paris is simply to sit in the café with a glass of wine or cup of coffee and watch the world go by"
ReplyDeleteI've only spent about one week in Paris, but yes, it's one of the best places in the world to do this. Also just walking the streets.
I hope it will not be long before you are back in your cafe! And that you get some good weather for it, too.
ReplyDeleteProfessor Wolff --
ReplyDeleteI appreciate this post. For me, one of the joys in life is getting to know the people who run our local eateries and cafes. Many of them are quite sincere about what they do and it rubs off on the customers. I too have grown to love and care for these people in our local neighborhood in Philadelphia who I would see and interact with at least once or twice a week. With the advent of the the pandemic, my trepidation grew regarding their precarious situation. Fortunately, most have been able to weather the storm. Why? Because they took swift action early. Facing an existential threat, they realized that if they were to survive, they must implement safety measures to reassure their customers. And it worked! Other parts of the country (and world) can learn from this example.
-- Jim
My younger son is the executive chef of two establishments, one was to open in mid March, in Harrisburg, Pa. They re-opened first with only outdoor seating, then with limited indoor service. After a staff member tested positive for COVID-19, they shut down until everyone was tested. The state meanwhile re-instituted more limited service as caseloads stared to spike and the restaurant owner decided to close for the duration. The costs of inventory - $15,000 to re-open, and the likelihood that inventory would be wasted due to another closure was the deciding factor. The owner can withstand the losses and they will open again, but the vast majority will not survive the pandemic. My son suspects there will be a culture change - less dining out when everything shakes out.
ReplyDeleteThe restaurant industry is leading the charge against the governor’s public health orders here in New Mexico. Sheriff’s are refusing to enforce the orders, and in one town the police force en mass patronized a restaurant that was open in defiance of the order. There is strong right-wing libertarian movement here, especially in the southeastern corner of the state. I particularly like their position that they have the right to choose to wear a mask or not, but women don’t enjoy similar privileges. To paraphrase Bugs Bunny, “What a bunch of maroons!”
It is good to know that normality will resume in a favorite Parisian cafe.
I hope the restaurant, and its staff, with make it through the pandemic. Here in Australia, or more particularly in Melbourne, we are in "lockdown" again, meaning only take-away from restaurants. Before that, they had been open, for a short period, with very limited seating, and with the requirement to take the name and contact details of all people. Lots of places took reservations only. As my wife and I were more likely to eat out on the fly or when we were away from home, this meant we didn't go out much, even when it was in theory possible. I'm not sure when it will be possible here again. (In much of Australia the situation is better, and I assume some form of dining out is possible.)
ReplyDeleteThe programs put in place to help pay the payroll of people "stood down" by the pandemic, the "job keepers" program, is set to be rolled back greatly or stopped completely. Australia is ruled by a hard-core "neo-liberal" (in the literal, not the mere pejorative sense that's usually used on the internet) and right-wing government, so they want very badly to stop any extra payments to people. My only hope is that this will help spur one of the occasional fits of sense in the population here that occasionally leads them to elect Labor governments, although we may be too far away from the next election for that. We'll see.
Do you kind of wish you had gotten stuck over there? I have a place in Hannover, and I kind of wish I had gotten stuck over there. Microsoft, work remotely.
ReplyDelete