Jérôme Deuxdeniers does not go unnoticed.
Especially in rue du Barbâtre, a historic thoroughfare that leads to Reims Cathedral, where the 52-year-old man has had his restaurant since the end of 2021, called “La Fontaine”, in reference to the Carmes fountain, just opposite the establishment. , one of seventeen erected in Reims in the 17th and 18th centuries.
They were the only ones to supply water to the Rémois until 1844.
Talkative and affable, the restaurateur greets each regular who passes in the street.
Behind its pretty counter from the 1930s – “the oldest in Reims”, he congratulates himself –, surrounded by piers, also from the period, and decorative objects found by him, he is regularly full, with 30 seats every lunchtime and homemade cuisine with market products.
But the man is also a lover of his neighborhood and he has just proven it.
He is at the origin of a call for patronage, in partnership with the Heritage Foundation, which made it possible to collect €30,000 to restore the fountain which gave its name to his restaurant.
Having become less useful after 1844, the Carmes fountain was obviously abandoned and then the building in which it was embedded was destroyed during the Great War.
Listed in the inventory of historic monuments in 1923, the work now goes almost completely unnoticed.
The work planned for September should remedy this.
The discreet Carmes fountain, listed in the inventory of historic monuments in 1923, will be restored next September LP/Simon Ksiazenicki.
Jérome Deuxdeniers owed that to his neighborhood.
“I was two years old, in 1974, when my mother opened the bar-restaurant Le Barbâtre,” says the man who knows the street better than anyone.
He counts: “I have lived on rue du Barbâtre nine times since I was born!
» It was a few steps from there that he learned the difficult profession of restaurateur.
For 20 years, his mother and stepfather ran Le Français.
“From the age of 8 to 18, I worked a lot there.
I came home at lunchtime, I ran the restaurant, I came back in the evening, I had the bar and the dishes.
And in the morning, at 7 a.m., I opened the store, remembers Jérôme Deuxdeniers.
At that age, you want to do something else... But when I left my parents' house at 18, I went to work in restaurants, because that's what I knew how to do.
»
This is what he did for more than 30 years, notably with two flourishing businesses in downtown Reims.
First, in 2005, Le Pas Sage – “a tart, sweet and savory, a hit!
» – and, ten years later, Chez Jérôme, a restaurant a stone's throw from the town hall and the Boulingrin halls.
“I’m coming and bam!
the neighborhood is regaining its luster, he laughs.
In the end, I was turning away hundreds of people a day…”
During the health crisis, he had the opportunity to return to rue du Barbâtre and took over the old Oyster Bar.
“It was trash, everything was dirty and broken,” the chef remembers.
When the owner, who had heard about me, saw what I had done with it, he said to me:
Bravo!
» It remained to find a name for this new establishment.
“I remembered a guide who showed me around the dilapidated and little-known monuments of Reims in the 1990s. And there was this fountain, in rue du Barbâtre.
»
“I love my neighborhood and the heritage,” admits Jérôme Deuxdeniers.
As I know a few people, I said to myself that it would be worth it to restore this beautiful fountain… All my customers played the game, it’s great,” enthuses the restaurateur.
One more story to tell for Jérôme Deuxdeniers.