food and drink
Guinguettes: Why open-air dining venues are booming
Festive eateries are enjoying a revival, with open-air food, drinks and music venues attracting visitors and local residents alike
Published
Once dismissed as old-fashioned, guinguettes – open-air venues for food, drink, music and, traditionally, dancing – are booming again across France.
Among the biggest is La Guinguette de Tours, where at least 320,000 people booked a table or bought a drink during its five-month 2026 season, from May 2 to September 26.
“I have never seen a guinguette like this,” says Matthieu Poupinel, director of Le Petit Monde, the association that has run it since its first edition in 2005. He previously worked at guinguettes in Amiens, Toulouse and Reims.
The Tours operation now spans five sites and forms part of Tours sur Loire, the city’s summer cultural programme
“There is definitely a trend going on,” says Nina Cornern, owner of La Belle Roulotte, a small guinguette in Reilhac (Cantal), which she opened in 2021.
Numbers elsewhere tell the same story. Haute-Garonne Tourisme lists 49 guinguettes across the department, including more than 15 in Toulouse, while Rennes has 21, up from 12 two years ago. Nantes has five, and more than 10 can be found along the Seine in Paris.
There are around 1,500 guinguettes across France, according to restaurant consultancy Gira Conseil. “People want to live experiences while drinking, eating and entertaining themselves. Guinguettes fit the bill,” said founder Bernard Boutboul.
Their appeal is easy to understand on a warm evening: strings of lights, shared tables, music drifting through the trees, a drink in hand and the feeling of being somewhere between a neighbourhood bar and a holiday escape.
Around Rennes, customers describe a family atmosphere and the sense of being on holiday without leaving the city.
The formula may feel contemporary, but the name is centuries old. Guinguettes appeared around Paris from the 17th Century, often beyond city tax barriers where cheaper wine could be sold, before flourishing along the Seine and the Marne in the 19th Century. They became places for eating, dancing, boating and bathing – part of the popular image of carefree Sundays outside the city.
That world entered French culture through Renoir’s Le Déjeuner des canotiers, films such as La Belle Equipe and songs including Bourvil’s 1952 celebration of Chez Gégène (À Joinville-le-Pont), with its refrain: “À Joinville-le-Pont, pon ! pon ! / Tous deux nous irons…”.
The boom, however, has not been universally welcomed. “Historically, the guinguette is by the water. Many no longer are today,” Mr Boutboul says. He argues that some newer venues – essentially fields with tables, chairs and food kiosks – have adopted the name without much connection to the original format.
The issue has been especially visible in Toulouse, where the rapid growth of seasonal venues has divided restaurateurs. Some complain of direct competition and say the label is being stretched too far.
One restaurateur told La Dépêche that a 600-cover operation was no longer a guinguette but “industrialisation”; others argue the boom adds energy to the city, forcing established restaurants to adapt.
Success is not guaranteed either. Many guinguettes are seasonal, exposed to weather and dependent on drinks, events and summer visitors. The term guinguette has no separate legal status, making the sector difficult to quantify.
As an owner Ms Cornern says the economics can be precarious. “I rely a lot on a clientele of seasonal tourists. With the high cost of petrol, people travel less,” she explains, adding that she knows operators who have already closed.
Perhaps the clearest symbol of the tension between revival and tradition is Chez Gégène in Joinville-le-Pont, one of France’s best-known historic guinguettes. Opened in 1918 and later, as mentioned, made famous by Bourvil, it closed in December 2024 when its long-time owners retired.
There is now strong local pressure for it to reopen. The Paris Est Marne et Bois authority has expressed interest in preserving the site as a leisure and conviviality venue, potentially combining the old Sunday-guinguette spirit with a café-concert, piano bar and karaoke.
Its future may show whether the traditional spirit of the guinguette can survive the modern-day boom.
