South Station in June 2020 (Archives) – O. Ayed / 20minutes / ANP
- Closed because of the pandemic, the Gare du Sud will not benefit from the deconfinement announced for Wednesday and is still giving itself a little time before “a new chapter”.
- The restaurants in the gourmet hall will only reopen from “June 25, and for four months”, “a first step before a brand new concept that will be unveiled in February 2022”.
Its many terraces, arranged all around the imposing metal hall and emptied by the Covid-19 pandemic, will not welcome the public on Wednesday and the following days. In Nice, the Gare du Sud and its restaurants will initially remain closed, despite the deconfinement.
They will only reopen from “June 25, and for four months”, “a first step before a brand new concept that will be unveiled in February 2022”, announces this Tuesday the new “operator” of the place, the company Enchanté . Surprise.
“Hybrid and transgenerational places”
Urban Renaissance, which has signed an operating contract for a little less than 50 years with the city of Nice, remains in charge of the place but has therefore chosen to join forces with an expert in gourmet halls. Enchanté, who already officiates at the Suspended Garden, Laho and La Grande surface in Paris, presents himself as a “specialist in food & beverage entertainment “, Or” entertainment around catering “in the language of Molière.
“Offering a quality gourmet offer is no longer enough today,” explains this company. Now is the time for festive food halls ”. For the 2,500 m2 of the Gare du Sud, inaugurated in 2019, it therefore offers a “new chapter” on a model already tested in “the United States, Canada, Great Britain and the Netherlands”. So many destinations that have offered “hybrid and transgenerational places, where you can, in addition to having a drink and eating, meet, party, play, sing, see a film or a concert”.
“Revisited with central bar and removable mini-bar system”
Still closed on Mondays, the hall will be open from 11 am to 11 pm Tuesday, Wednesday and Sunday and until midnight Thursday, Friday and Saturday evenings and should offer from this summer “karaoke, blind tests, bingo, fortune-telling, make-up, limbo ”, all“ against a background of selected musical programming ”. The place will be “revisited to meet the constraints of the moment, with click & collect service, central bar and removable mini-bar system”.
The Gare du Sud, which could have gone out of business at the beginning of the year according to a rumor then denied at 20 minutes by Urban renaissance, was therefore preparing a recovery plan in any case. The general manager of Urban Renaissance then confirmed that several tenants were in difficulty and would no longer be present in the hall when it reopened. Already in June 2020, several restaurateurs denouncing too high rents and technical problems had gone on strike. What about today ? Jocelyn Berthier did not respond to our request this Tuesday morning.