Sirloin with pepper sauce or Provençal sea bream.
On the taupe wall of the restaurant Le Minuscule, in Châteaulin (Finistère), the daily specials for Thursday, October 28 are still displayed on the slate, as if frozen in time.
"We could offer the same menu on the day of the reopening", launches in jest, Nathalie Guillou.
For thirty years, she and her husband, Stéphane, have managed their pizzeria, located next to the small gray granite town hall, facing the office of the President of the National Assembly, Richard Ferrand (LREM).
“What is painful is that we do not see the end of it, regrets Stéphane, passing the dough pieces through the rolling mill.
We are closed for a month, then a month ... Instead of telling us clearly, the State leaves us in total uncertainty.
In November, the Guillou couple decided to confine themselves to their home and do some work.
But to keep the restaurant afloat, they have resumed take-out since December 1.
"At the first confinement, I lost 110,000 euros"
Instead of 80 covers per service, Stéphane sells “between 5 and 50 pizzas and daily specials” at noon during the week, a little more on three weekend evenings.
"It's very irregular but it allows us to pay the fixed costs and to release a small salary for both of us," says Stéphane.
Take-away sales and deliveries (free and carried out by Nathalie from four pizzas) represent around 20% of the usual turnover of the establishment, an institution that is one of the oldest restaurants in the small town of 5,500 inhabitants. .
"I lost 110,000 euros over the three months of spring confinement," notes the owner.
So, the aid of 10,000 euros is good but it is not much… ”To pass the course, the couple reduced their non-essential expenses and digged into their savings.
“But we are not to be pitied!
»Specifies Nathalie.
Every noon, Maxime comes to help his parents prepare the Minuscule's dish of the day.
LP / Olivier Arandel
Their three employees - a chef, a pizza maker and a waiter - are on short-time work.
"I've been home for six months now, I keep busy doing things," says Hervé, the chef at Minuscule for twenty-eight years.
I lose 300 euros per month, I would prefer to work but I have no choice.
»Philosopher, Hervé came to buy a Dolce« because I really wanted a pizza ».
In the absence of employees, Maxime, the son of Stéphane and Nathalie, comes to give them a hand at lunchtime.
"I make the daily specials while mom takes orders and dad prepares the pizzas," said the 28-year-old.
This lunchtime, it's veal tab and beef sirloin for 9 euros, 11.50 euros with dessert.
"Raclettes allow me to maintain the link"
Maxime Guillou was forced to close his own restaurant, L'Entourage, located a few hundred meters across the wide canal.
“I opened a year before the first confinement.
Over two years, I have already been closed for seven months, remembers the young man, a blue mask on his red beard, who offers slate dishes made from local products.
Impossible for him to rely on take-out.
“No one will buy a skewer of Saint-Jacques to heat it in the microwave…” observes, realistically, the young self-taught restaurateur.
So Maxime offers his traditional raclette machines for hire.
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"There is a convivial and festive side with the cheese, matured in the region, which flows on the plates", rejoices the former seasonal server in the high mountains.
These raclette and charcuterie platters sold at 44 euros for four just allow him to pay the restaurant's 1300 euros rent.
“I still have unemployment and as we are in ZRR (
Editor's note: rural revitalization zone
), I am exempt from taxes for five years, explains Maxime Guillou.
Financially, with the help of 10,000 euros, I'm doing pretty well.
Raclettes mainly allow me to maintain the link with my clients.
"
To keep the business afloat, the Guillou family can count on customer loyalty.
LP / Olivier Arandel
Because the family of restaurateurs would like to point out: “Fortunately, the customers are there, loyal.
As every Thursday noon, Jean-Yves came to Minuscule.
Usually, he comes to eat "only meat" on the spot, with his wife.
“It's our ritual,” says the retiree, always in a hurry, stomping in front of the bar.
Since closing, I have taken out.
It does them a service and it allows you to see people.
"
Same desire for solidarity on the part of Jean-Luc.
"With colleagues, we want to eat hot and the chance to be reimbursed for our meals," explains this employee of an agricultural cooperative.
So we run the take-out restaurants in turn and eat at the office.
"
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“Raclette with friends is dead…” regrets Maxime.
“Weekend evenings represent half of my current figure,” says Stéphane.
I will continue sales in delivery.
We'll see what happens… "