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And the small bistro-bar remains integral
to the visitor's notion of "Paris."
The Parisian café may be an 19th
century innovation, but most everyone agrees it's one worth fighting
to preserve, despite economic pressures which would replace these
neighborhood anchors with more "efficient" and "profitable"
chain restaurants.
The Café Defines Itself
Neighborhood cafes first appeared en masse
toward the end of the 19th century, carving out their place in the
daily life of the city. Over the years, they have remained quite
faithful to their original look and spirit.
Originally they were simply places where
city dwellers could come for good food and wine from the French
countryside at reasonable prices. The décor of these older
inns -- high ceilings, with sculptured moldings, large mirrors,
mosaic tiled floors, and walls decorated with posters, photos or
even paintings -- has become the trade mark of many Parisian bistros.
Behind the common façade, which
makes any café seem familiar and comfortable, every café-bistro
had its own style and clientele. Workers tended to go to one café,
while management might go to another. One was popular among foreigners,
while another was "French French." Younger people preferred
one, while the older folk chose a third.
In time, certain cafes became noted for
the creative clientele they attracted. The artists played an important
role in the making and unmaking of a café's reputations.
Home for the Artists
The café found itself at the center
of the principle artistic and intellectual movements of the 20th
century.
The association of artists with specific
cafes really began when the Fauvists and Cubists left the chaos
of Montmartre, choosing a quiet Montparnasse café -- la Closerie
des Lilas -- as their meeting place.
Parisians began pushing to get into cafes
to hang out with Picasso, Braque, Derain or Modigliani. The "Montparnasse
trend" was created as La Rotonde, Le Dôme, La Coupole,
and Le Sélect became meeting places for the most innovative
artists and writers of the period.
Soon the glamour of the cinema attracted
trendy Parisians toward the Champs-Elysées where Le Fouquet's
became THE place for those in world of cinema.
While the Nazi Occupation put a damper
on cutting edge creativity (not to mention the nightlife), cafes
remained quiet refuges for Parisians - resistors quietly plotted
actions around café tables, and in the midst of the Occupation,
Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir were busy writing at Le
Café de Flore. The owner was kind to his "clients"
though they often bought only one small café each day. The
basis of "existentialism" was developed there and this
café achieved a mythical status with the Liberation. All
Paris was pushing to get in! Only the neighboring café, Deux-Magots,
was as popular.
These two cafes became the anchors of the
neighborhood at the apex of Parisian cultural life.
In Danger of Disappearing?
But Saint-Germain-des-Prés would
be the last neighborhood to become fashionable le because of its
cafes until the 1990s. The youth culture of American pinball machines
and jukeboxes made neighborhood café-bistros unfashionable
beginning in the 1960s.
Unable and unwilling to emulate the American-inspired
hangouts for the younger generation, the traditional café-bistros
stopped multiplying. And as French habits changed, while the neighborhood
structure of Paris was transformed, small neighborhood cafes began
closing at an alarming rate.
Luckily, over the past decade the café-bistros
have begun to make a comeback thanks to places like Le Café
de l'Industrie at Bastille or le Café Charbon, rue Oberkampf,
which have renovated, in different ways, the original spirit and
ambience of the café-bistro.
Here the clientele still varies by time
of day. In the morning local workers mix with neighborhood residents,
all stopping in for a quick coffee before starting the day. Those
who don't have to rush off to work, take the time to leisurely read
the paper. Lunchtime bustles with activity, as the day's business
is animatedly discussed over a shared meal. Meanwhile the regulars
start appearing -- each drinking their usual drink at their favorite
spot along the "comptoir." With the end of the workday,
a constant stream of local workers and neighborhood residents stop
in for a drink or to meet friends, while the regulars continue to
trade rounds among themselves. And then, as the evening wears on
the night crowd begins wandering in...
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