Café culture is dying in France, according to the BBC. Sadly, this is not surprising. When I was in France, one of the first Starbucks on the Left Bank had just opened. By the time I had left, it was going gangbusters. People want coffee to go, and more of it. I hardly ever went to a café, and neither did many of my friends, French or otherwise, because it wasn't worth the price for a small espresso cup, and it didn't fit into our schedules--people don't do homework in cafés. The woman in this WSJ article says it best: "I don't like the French brasserie -- you can go in to the same place day after day and the waiter will still look at you with a long face." Starbucks now has over 50 locations in and around Paris and Lyon, and will be able to weather the recession much more effectively than mère-et-père storefronts. Given the decline in prestige Starbucks has been experiencing recently in this country, it's difficult to know whether they'll stick around in France. But it is unlikely that the cafés classiques, once gone, will come back.
Posts
