New ‘hybrid’ restaurant-bar project opens in Rennes

Avec - which describes itself as a “restaurant, bar, boutique, workshop, tattoo parlour and barber shop” - is located in an industrial park in the south-east of the city, and spans 900m2.

The bar and restaurant form the central part of the project, but the other options are housed in the same location.

These include the Kalil Tattoo Family tattoo parlour, the hairdresser and barber The Barber Lodge, as well as a ready-to-wear clothes shop specialising in biking and surfing apparel.

The site is also next to a garage workshop specialising in vintage cars, to which customers can take their motorbikes and vehicles to be tuned and customised.

The project comes from Rennes group STD, who are also behind other restaurants in the city, including Wok, BDS, Monsieur Yak and the WhiteFields Cafe in nearby Cesson-Sévigné.

Manager François Brault said: “Each area has its own ‘universe’. Here, we are mixing the genres of motorbike culture and vintage. It’s a global project with real coherence between the shops. We didn’t want to just make it a soulless shopping centre.

“There is something Californian about this area. We wanted to recreate the ambiance of the Wheel and Waves Festival in Biarritz, which mixes surfing, motorbikes, and music - which is where we like to be.”