Is this the most important aspect of Paris I noticed, its lack of a Hard Rock Cafe? Hardly. But it’s nominally emblematic of the city’s confidence. Paris is a city that tourists love because it’s Paris, and Parisians believe in that draw more powerfully than any visitor. They don’t need to stoop to catering directly to tourists beyond the sidewalk postcard shops and speaking a bit more English than they might otherwise prefer.
Oh boy, does Paris have cafés, though. They are a delight. Every sidewalk is littered with small wood-and-wicker tables with matching chairs, all coordinated to the color of the awning overhead. There are ashtrays as far as the eye can see. Cheap metal ashtrays. An occasional decorative ceramic option. Probably a few I didn’t even clock as an ashtray because it’s been two decades since they’ve been a public mainstay in the United States. One server during a slow morning sat down a few tables away from me and lit up while waiting for more customers.
Some are café-restaurants, the most ambitious with opening hours from eight in the morning until two in the morning. This French version of a Denny’s is, well, a lot better than a Grand Slam with Mickey Mouse pancakes. The standard breakfast of an espresso, orange juice, and croissant is followed up with lunch and dinner options that run the gamut from well-executed simplicity to niche French cuisine in equal manner. I had an approximation of a poke bowl one night after my bone marrow appetizer, while Erin and my aunt had a very fancy charcuterie board.
These cafés must compete with the boulangeries, what with their acute attention to baked goods across the spectrum. I’ve never been a fan of the plain croissant, always preferring a pain chocolat. Paris didn’t convert me, but it sure evened the playing field. The day after we returned I bought two plain croissants from the baker at our local farmer’s market, rather than the croissant and cinnamon roll (or monkey bread, or cookie, or…) that comprise my typical order.
I found a couple of gems. Boulangerie Octave was my only repeat visit, while Les Fréres Blavette served up a killer brunch that was significantly more food than I intended to order. So goes the tourist life. I didn’t know I needed a citrus meringue tart for dessert after my breakfast, but I was on vacation.
Now, I led with food. Paris indeed does not have a Hard Rock Cafe, and the closest one is in Germany or something. It doesn’t matter. Paris also doesn’t have the tourist area beyond, I suppose, Champs d’Elysses. I’m not sure that counts. There’s no Pier 39, or Navy Pier, or some other pier in the United States that presumably exists with a Bubba Gump and a Left-hand Store. Like it or not, tourists are focused on a terribly impressive steel structure, and centuries-old churches. There are trinkets to buy at the former, and alms to give in the latter, but that’s all I saw.
Wonderful as the tremendous churches are, I’m curious what practicing congregants think. The pious Catholics must have some mixed feelings. They have scads of people roaming through each day, and they’ve given up policing covered shoulders in most sanctuaries. On the other hand, these folks aren’t immune to that self-assuredness of Paris. “Come see our church, and let it awe you into something approximating silence on the scale of a tourist,” they likely think.
I do have to give away the game a bit, though. Despite their best efforts, Burger King somehow remains alive and well in Paris. There was also a Starbucks in a prominent location in the train station. The city is not immune to the wiles of American quick service restaurants. I wasn’t often far from a Subway, if that’s what I needed in a pinch. (I didn’t.)
But they were mostly subtle and forgettable. They were tucked in here and there, not part of a megastructure that was pasted onto the side of an otherwise wonderful area. You can’t say that about the front awning of a Hard Rock Cafe, and Paris has held firm thus far. I could never live in the city, but I sure appreciate it for what it is after visiting.