It is the story of an Auvergnat who rode a motorcycle in the streets of Dinan. Stopping by chance on the port of the charming city of Côtes d’Armor, Jean-Christophe Genillier discovers a very beautiful restaurant for sale. And buy it. This crush was formed ten years ago and gave birth to an Auvergne restaurant called Chez Odette Bongrain. Well known to locals, the address of 9 rue du Quai was transformed for a week into a real attraction at the time of the evening service. The reason ? The mini “show” given by its staff, disguised as a Saint-Tropez gendarme. A joke imagined by the boss who hides a real message: that of contesting the control of the health pass imposed on restaurateurs in France since August 9. “Controlling people is not my job! It bothers me to know their name, their date of birth. I don’t have to know that, ”annoys Jean-Christophe Genillier.
The owner of the restaurant estimates that every evening, he devotes “35 to 50 minutes” to check the sanitary passes of the customers. “I am not against vaccination at all. But I believe that it is not for us to carry out these checks. If the State imposes such measures, it is up to it to enforce them ”. And not to waiters or bartenders. The idea had occurred to him while talking with a client, who had told him “that they were not gendarmes”. “Even in the metro, we do not control it”.
For a week, he and his staff donned a disguise made famous by the movie “The Gendarme of Saint-Tropez” rented from a shop in the medieval city. Every evening at 8:30 p.m., the crowd gathered to see this improvised parade by these catering professionals at 8:30 p.m. The video of a few seconds posted on Facebook by a relative of a member of the staff completed the publicity of the case. “We have over 700,000 views. We didn’t want to create a buzz, just explain with humor to our customers that we did not agree but that we had no choice ”.
“We are planning other surprises”
Sunday August 15, the owner of the restaurant preferred to stop the daily parade. “The best jokes are the shortest,” explains Jean-Christophe Genillier. A victim of its own success, the restaurant was the subject of nauseating comments on social networks and preferred to return the disguises. “But we are planning other surprises”, slips the Auvergnat.