2023-08-26 11:30:00
Regional restaurants have given way to large restaurant chains, like McDonald’s or Paul. Motorway companies claim they are meeting consumer expectations.
McDonald’s, Burger King, Paul, Starbucks… If you stop for a break at a motorway rest area this weekend, on your way home from your vacation, chances are you’ll come across one of those big restaurant chains. To find a small independent local restaurateur, offering regional specialties, you will most certainly have to get off the highway… “We did a study seven or eight years ago, which showed that there were 10 to 12% of independent restaurants left on highways“, points out Bernard Boutboul, president of the specialized firm Gira. “There’s 1% left today, the chains have eaten it all up“, adds the geographer Gilles Fumey.
And maybe even less. From its Port-Lauragais area (Haute-Garonne), on the A61 motorway between Toulouse and Carcassonne, where it has been present since 1983 and serves an average of 400 meals every day – including 150 homemade cassoulets -, Georges Gouttes, 75, is a bit the memory of the highways. “From a pure restorer…
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