A TALE OF BAGUETTES, BUREAUCRACY, AND BROKEN DINNER DREAMS

You’re Closed for What Reason This Time?

Do you know how fun it is to plan the perfect dinner? I mean really plan it — fresh vegetables from the good shop in the next town, a baguette that’s still warm, one of those meals where you feel like you’re finally getting the hang of this whole France thing.

So you get in the car, drive fifteen minutes to Bléré on a Thursday afternoon, already thinking about dinner… and the gates are locked. Closed. No reason. No explanation. Just a sign that might as well say, “Not today.”

Then last week friends came to visit and I wanted to show off our local boulangerie — the one whose croissants win Best of the Central Val de Loire every year. I walk them down the street like a proud tour guide and the place is dark. Shutters closed. Handwritten note on the door: Fermé jusqu’au 20 mai.

No explanation. No apology. Just a date two weeks in the future.

This is the part where my brain starts working overtime. Maybe they’re making too much money. The baker. The veggie guy. Cash-heavy businesses. And if there’s one thing the French tax office doesn’t love, it’s success that looks a little too… successful.

So what do you do? You shut it down for a week or two. Let the debit card transactions settle. Go camping. Cool things off.

Is that actually what’s happening? I have no idea. But it feels right.

And honestly, whether it’s true or not doesn’t really matter, because the end result is always the same. You don’t make the schedule here. You don’t argue with it. You just quietly revise dinner plans and pretend this was the plan all along.