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Dordogne restaurant prices


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Is it just me or has anyone else noticed the extraordinary hike in restaurant menu prices since the TVA reduction in 2009?

In Bergerac, which has very over-priced restaurants anyway (I would estimate c 20% more expensive than their Bordeaux equivalents), I could cite many examples but take L'Imparfait for one ( a nice place to go for a treat). Menu 2 years ago 27 Euros, today 32 (and that is after what should have been a 3 Euro reduction arising from the TVA reduction. So basically a 33% increase. I don't mean to single these guys out - most others are equally as guilty.

I can't help feeling these places are taking the short-term view of profit hikes, I suppose thinking that the tourists won't be coming back anyway so let's fleece them.

What a shame...

Is this just isolated to the Bergerac area or has anyone seen it elsewhere?
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I have in and around the Charente, but worse, I have come to accept it, I have recently enjoyed lunch in several places for the 12€ standard rate, but quite a few of those that were around last year are no longer there and rumours abound of those who will not be there at this years seasons end. Not surprising in view of noticeably fewer people eating out, French owners I have spoken to repeat that the main core were the English, and not so many or so often . . .
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The traditional french style eatery has been completely wiped out in commuterville Paris. Kebabs, McDo, Quick, pizza emporter, seems the same in the other big cities I visit. Kebabs, kebabs, kebabs, kebabs, hoe many magrebhis are ther in France[:D]

Standard marketing practice is if the volumes go down, the price goes up. It would be absolute commercial suicide to cut prices, hoping that volumes will increase!! Not sure exactly what margins French restos work to, but it must be in the region of 60% GP. All the input costs have risen dramatically. I'd be a wee bit suspicious of a 3 course meal that costs EUR10. There's only EUR4 of food in that[:-))]

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The missus sounds suspiciously French and her passporte is a funny colour[:D] She's proper French[:D]

Know what you mean though, but it does seem to be a growing problem, particularly where the population average age is under 100.

Just as an aside. Ask your boulaberier where he gets his croissant dough. He bakes on the premises, but the dough all comes from Brake Bros. Swindon's answer to haute cuisine[:D] 75% market share in France. I was a bit shocked and disappointed when that story appeared in Le Monde.

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[quote user="breizh"] Just as an aside. Ask your boulaberier where he gets his croissant dough. He bakes on the premises, but the dough all comes from Brake Bros. Swindon's answer to haute cuisine[:D] 75% market share in France. I was a bit shocked and disappointed when that story appeared in Le Monde.[/quote]

Well apparently, my local bakery up the road still make their's with flour from their own mill; http://www.le-site-de.com/boulangerie-patisserie-du-moulin-sartier-salles-lavalette_90899.html [:)]

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Lots of the bakers don't really do every thing from scratch and haven't for years and years.

Some do ofcourse, and some are very good at it and others most certainly are not. Trouble is that when there is a lousy baker in a little village and nowhere else to buy french bread in the vicinity, then they still sell their wares. At least with the 'pain industriel' it is usually OK.

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I heard this American bemoaning the state of French bread about a year ago. An early Christmas present for painophiles? http://www.amazon.co.uk/Good-Bread-Back-Contemporary-History/dp/0822338335/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1304578415&sr=1-1
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[quote user="idun"] Lots of the bakers don't really do every thing from scratch and haven't for years and years.  Some do ofcourse, and some are very good at it and others most certainly are not. Trouble is that when there is a lousy baker in a little village and nowhere else to buy french bread in the vicinity, then they still sell their wares. At least with the 'pain industriel' it is usually OK.[/quote]

To almost get back to topic, the problem most places locally seem to have is sustaining the business model through a 12month period(apologies for that 'speak') Rural France where we are is virtually closed en hiver. When we first bought our place it was on the basis that the village had a variety of facilities, cafe restaurant, couple of shops etc, there is now no commerce at all in that village and the nearest is 5 minutes away by car. Even the boulangerie locally which was very good, (and not inexpensive) folded through lack of trade, the current bakery has reopened under the auspices of the Mill, perhaps they could not sustain their trade without an outlet. The (extremely wealthy) Maire has been trying to reopen the cafe/restaurant which was once a thriving hub, and has engaged an architect to redevelop the property but is struggling after a year to find anyone to lease the premises, the last tenant apparently made little money, eventually having a nervous breakdown, despite running a busy premises during lunchtime for working French and equally busy for English Dutch and German Tourists all weekend, so it seems no-one is brave enough to jump in. Other restaurants locally set up bravely only to fold after a season or two, some reopen only for the same to occur. I can only assume the French tax regime is responsible.

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One of the problems seems to me to be the vast comparative cost of employing extra staff - especially if you only need them for a few hours a week,  a pretty common scenario in the retail food business (where I worked for years).  Thus I get the distinct impression that many of the small restaurants are run as family businesses with all the problems that entails, leading to JJ's "little money/nervous breakdown" scenario.  No government in recent times over here seems to have tackled this problem well (I'm not sure it's handled that successfully in the UK but at least one can work for a few hours a week if one wants to without crippling costs for one's employer) as far as I can see, but maybe I just don't understand the system well enough?

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Never-ending legislation and increasing costs of employment must make the restaurant trade a tough one to be in.  Even now most of our favourites are family run (which means a degree of patience is required since there's usually only one person working the dining room) but I suspect the old ways of home-reared chickens and pigs etc. for the table have largely disappeared.
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My son went to a good cooking school. [:)]My friends in England say 'chef' school, but the chef is the boss nez pah!

He ended up doing seasonal work and I had thought that he would work hard, earn quite a bit and then for the lean periods have enough to live on. NOPE, not on your life. If the french government has been very good with say the building trade, they have not done other than put in written laws for restauration that they don't check up on, or if they do, I have yet to hear of it happening. What happened was, and I am simply going by memory and won't be far out, approx 43 hours per week are normal working hours, plus approx 12 hours per month as overtime. So approx 47 hours per week can be put on a pay slip and paid. My son always did 80-90 hours per week. He was paid for his 47. He would finish a season in a terrible state, completely exhausted and without the boost of having a bank account with some money in it.

Who gained, well the customers, I get apoplectic when I hear, 'tips are included', proper pay isn't even included!!![:@] AND the restaurant owners ofcourse who  do OK in resorts too.

Local restaurants, well, truth is the good ones,even decent ones were few and far between chez moi in France.The  only decent one in our village closed when the owners retired. The next decent one, deteriorated and the last meal I had there was horrible, both in quality and price. We then had a good drive to get a good meal and even then it was hard to find a good resto. Good job, good meals were available chez moi!

Meals for 12€? Sounds cheap to me for France. Cannot remember how many years it is since I had one at anything like that price.Did have a good meal last night, three courses for £12 though.

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[quote user="idun"] Meals for 12€? Sounds cheap to me for France. Cannot remember how many years it is since I had one at anything like that price.Did have a good meal last night, three courses for £12 though.[/quote]

4 courses on the itchy feet tour for 12€ and pretty good it was too, if I recall aussi le vin compris, http://www.aubergedelabrande.com/Index.htm pop along on July 10th at  aubeterre sur dronne, some of the locals do a 12€ lunch.

 

 

 

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[quote user="just john "]

[quote user="idun"] Meals for 12€? Sounds cheap to me for France. Cannot remember how many years it is since I had one at anything like that price.Did have a good meal last night, three courses for £12 though.[/quote]

4 courses on the itchy feet tour for 12€ and pretty good it was too, if I recall aussi le vin compris, http://www.aubergedelabrande.com/Index.htm pop along on July 10th at  aubeterre sur dronne, some of the locals do a 12€ lunch.

 

 

 

[/quote]It wasn't the only 12€ 3-course nosh I had during that fortnight, either.  That's a pretty common price for lunch round here - rather more at night, though, and in smarter places in LM.
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Go off slightly, the local bakers to our house in France amazes me. In the 4 years we have owned our house the price of his bread etc is still the same. We have tried some of the other bakers and his is the best.

Talking about bakers, on our way to the meal that John refers to we stopped in a little village and bought pain au chocolat - and they were horrible. On out journey back to the UK we stopped at the service area just after Dreux and bought pain au chocolat in the gargae there. We did not expect much but were 100 times better than the village bakers we stopped at the day before.

And yes John, I was very impressed by the meal on Coops tour.

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We also thought that the meal we had near Bergerac on the Itchy Feet Tour was excellent value; €11.50 if I remember correctly, for 4 courses, with wine included. It was all very tasty, and served by cheerful staff too.

We have a choice of around 16 bakers. The two main ones we use definitely make their own bread, cakes, pizzas, quiches etc. In fact, you can watch it happening at one of them, as they work by a large glass window in the kitchen next to the shop; in the summer they quite often have an audience! That's quite a big place, with a tearoom attached; the other is quite small, it's organic, and the owner worked at Eton at one time, and also at a Roux brothers' restaurant.

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