Taking one's own croissants to a cafe?
 

As a rather newer poster here, I have read many an entry before dipping my toes, so to speak, into the discussion pool

I see from several posters that it seems to be OK to visit a bakery in Paris, buy croissants, and bring them to a cafe to have with one's coffee.

Are you quite sure? Can you enlighten me with details or personal experience, please?

As always, with much appreciation for your input,

Charles

You must be joking. All cafes in Paris have trapdoors under the table that automatically spring open as soon your lips touch a bakery bought croissant.

Charles, you might be a "newby" but I am an "Oldy" who has been to Paris at least 20 times and I ,too, find that assertion a bit odd!

Most if not all cafes, bars, etc who offer coffee in the early morning also offer croissants, tartines, pain au chocolat, and if that is what I want I would purchase it from them..after all I am occupying one of their tables. It seems a bit like taking a Happy Meal into a restaurant and ordering a bottle of water!

It just seems incredibly rude to me!

Jody, so I guess sticking a couple of croissants from your "free" hotel breakfast in your fannypack and eating them later on the sly at a cafe is out of the question?

First off, I would never have a fannypack! And second I can afford to buy lunch!

Jody, me too, but I have seen more than a few folks "fill up" those gross bags before leaving the hotel.

I'm just wondering why, oh why, you'd want to do this?

For one thing, cafes procure their croissants from the very best bakeries. They may be priced a bit higher, but they're served on a lovely plate atop a placemat, with a napkin, and accompanied by that marvelous French butter and an assortment of fabulous confitures.

I don't see why this issue would be any different in any country. Why would a shop owner want you bringing a similar product from another store into their shop?

Would you bring a brown bag to your local cafe? I would assume not..the same goes for Paris.

I do see however why he has posted this! I've seen numerous posts where people do exactly that...I can't quite understand why one would do it!

If you want to eat on the cheap, buy at a bakery, including coffee, and return to your room. Or, in the summer, find a park bench.

If you want to eat a style, go to a cafe and have a seat at a table.

As a compromise, places like La Brioche Doree have great pastries. You buy at the counter and take your purchase to a table and eat it.

I suppose you could take a bag of something or other with you, buy coffee, and drink it with your goodies.

But La Briochee Doree has such good stuff, I am not tempted to buy elsewhere!!

Best strawberry tarts I found at less than skyrocket prices.

bob brown reminds me of getting up really early one morning, walking to Poilane and standing in line for out of the oven croissants, then back to the hotel, stopping for coffee at the little shop nearby and having breakfast in our room...

I would feel really awkward and rude if I took food to a cafe..

I would say --- it depends. I have done this, but only in really cheap neighborhood cafes (more like tabacs, or when I was a student there and lots of students were at tables). Also, I am not comfortable doing it unless I see someone else in the place doing it for the same reason others mention -- it's treating a cafe as a park bench or picnic table. Some cafes do not sell all the things others mentioned -- in fact, none of the ones I frequent sell anything at breakfast other than plain croissants. I like something else (croissants aux amandes are my favorite), so there is no way to get it other than bring it yourself. It is a lot cheaper, also. If I just wanted a plain croissant, I probably wouldn't bother, and would consider the extra fee owed to the cafe for the place.

There are plenty of places that are not regular cafes where you can buy a wider variety or even have your own stuff if you buy coffee because they are more "takeout" places and you may just sit outside at some picnic tables or something. They tend to be cheaper and have the same thing you want, anyway, though, so you would buy it there (Brioche Doree or places like that).

I have been in some rather upscale cafes, and never seen anyone do this, and I would have been uncomfortable trying it myself, so I didn't.

There's an old-fashioned term for this sort of suggestion: bad form.

Somehow this thread inspires an insane urge to buy some fish and chips and to take them into the Ritz...

Hi Charles,

As Christina mentions, it is possible if you are going to a place that doesn't offer croissants, etc.

Also, if you order a coffee at the bar, you are expected to drink it standing at the bar. You pay more for table service inside. You pay even more for table service outside.

((I))

It's very rude, don't do it. If you going to a place that doesn't offer croissants, and you want a croissant and coffee then why are you going to that particular place? Stop somewhere where you can purchase both of your items and don't make such a production out of something as simple as having a coffee & croissant.

Patrick, we're back to the misleading travel information.

"The jolly pub landlord will welcome visitors who bring their own beer"

Something I've seen which is a bit of a shocker - In Austria and Germany where a big breakfast buffet is usually included in the price - American groups, who eat all they can, but then take what they can away with them, not just in those dreaded multicolour fanny packs but in small rucksacks! Cheese, sausage, endless breadrolls and yoghurts get taken away. The Germans and Austrians just look on - mesmerised.

It's the frontier spirit, obviously. You never know what might happen before nightfall...

By the way, if you're looking to do things on the cheap in Paris, there is a nice Indian restaurant in the 9th that doesn't serve alcohol - but you can bring your own wine, beer, bottles of moonshine - what ever! They will provide glasses and open the bottles for you and there is no corkage charge. It's great fun for a cheap dinner, and has lots of tables outside.

lawchick: relatives of ours reported seeing this in an Edinburgh hotel - not just packing breakfast food into their bags, but making it up into rolls first ! I'm surprised the hotel staff didn't say anything. Don't know what nationality the culprits were.

Lawchick, etc., please do not assume this is strictly an American thing or that all Americans "eat all they can" (stereotype much?). I have seen other nationalities make sandwiches or take extras from the breakfast buffet, including Irish, British, and Germans.

Taking a croissant from a bakery into a cafe is bad form. Don't do it. If you can't afford to buy a croissant at the cafe, then buy one at a bakery and eat it on a bench or in your hotel room. Better still, seek out a bakery that also serves coffee. Many do.

And even quick take-away patisseries and boulangeries in Paris will serve your coffee in an actual coffee cup, not the paper cups we're accustomed to. It really won't be a challenge to find a place that serves both.

I'm appalled at the suggestion that this practice is an 'American thing'. Boorishness is international. Charles, don't even think about it.

Before my first trip to Paris last month, my co-worker, who lived in Paris for 2 years, told me that this was perfectly acceptible practice and that she did it quite often. She actually recommend that I do it. I did find it quite weird, and luckily it was never an issue as most of the cafes that I went to sold croissants and various pastries.

Tracy

To all the posters who had replied:

I assure you that my impulse was not to do such a thing. Instead, I found this habit, if it indeed was acceptable, to be quite strange. My reaction was exactly the same as Tracey's.

In the time between my posting the question and this follow-up response, a French friend of one my co-workers has commented that many Parisians do this, it is not frowned upon, and her explanation matched Christina's almost word for word: there are some cafes where it is certainly OK and others where one wouldn't.

When I questioned her use of the cafe space, the co-worker put it this way: "In the United State, before McDonalds had nutritional salads, I thought nothing of going there to buy a drink and eat my packed lunch on THEIR table. No one was upset with me. I have eaten my own cereal with milk inside a Dunkin'Donuts because while I don't like donuts, I do enjoy their coffee. However, that does not mean I would, at lunch time, march into a sit-down restaurant and pull out my packed lunch. There are places where it's OK, and there are places where it's not."

I can see her point.

Even so, I do not think I am inclined to do such a thing while in France.

With appreciation for insights offered,
Charles

If I may make a distinction, this question has little to do with buffet stuffing, carrying away napkins and condiments, stealing bread, etc.

If it can help, here is a sample taken from nukesafe's trip report :

<Coco had called the owner of a very nice bistro the night before and had told him about educating Americans in the art of French overindulgence, and asked if we could bring our bakery goods into his place, monopolize a big table for the seven of us, and only order coffee while we scattered crumbs all over his establishment. “Of course”, was the reply.

We went in, met the proprietor, and proceeded to demand coffee, knives, forks, napkins. We each cut our pastries into small enough pieces for all to sample, and dove in....>

http://www.fodors.com/forums/threads...p;tid=34686300

Well, a call ahead of time from a local customer is quite different from me or your heading into a café with a bakery-bought croissant. While I can see that there might be a certai few places where that might be acceptable, this is one of those things where I think you should just know instinctively that it's not the right thing to do.

Patrick, your frontier comment made me spill my tea on the keyboard - hilarious! :)

Dear cocofromdijon,

What an paradox! Out of context, your quote seems to be a spoof of a travel report. How fascinating to find that in context, your snippet is part of a witty and colorful description of true events.

Thank you for a delightful nugget.

Charles

I'm glad you liked it Charles :-d
nukesafe will be happy to read your comment!
corinne

A funny thought just crossed my mind.
Buy fish and chips, the greasy type, have them in a paper bag, go into the Ritz, and order a cup of tea or coffee. Then pull out the fish and chips and start munching loudly.

The modern day equivalent of Alan Funt could be there with his cameras.

I am not sure I would try that in restaurants where the waiters tend to be more volatile.

I ran into an excitable type in a little place just off Raspail at Montparnasse once. When my credit card would not pass muster, the waiter came back making noises like an over heated tea kettle.
Not sure I want to try the croissants on him!!

(Fortunately, the backup credit card worked, which was indeed beneficial because when my wife got up to go to an ATM a few blocks away, the waiter really did let off steam. I was seated, with my credit, debit, and ATM cards spread on the table along with a few AE travler's checks.

When the waiter saw the checks he calmed down. I never figured out why he was so agitated to begin with. I guess he had been burned in the past.)

No of course it is not OK. What posters said that it was? I don't recall any such discussion.

We have a funny thing here in Brussels -in Place Jourdan where there is a famous "friterie" - all the bars around the area have signs up saying "Frites Welcome" complete with a picture of a smiling chip bag - so you buy your frites from the friterie and then you go inside to a bar, buy a beer and they will give you napkins, ketchup (or mayo rather here) etc. and you can enjoy your frites in the warmth.

Last year while staying in Paris, the woman we rented the apt. from recommended a bakery for our morning croissants and suggested buying our croissants there and taking them to the cafe just one door down on the corner for our coffee or hot chocolate. She said she does this all the time and while we were at the bakery, we saw others doing the same thing.I was a little embarrassed doing it at first, but no one seemed to care and I assumed it was the norm. I don't think this particular bakery served coffee and the cafe was a small place with tables outside.

You are allowed to bring your own croissants only if you've baked them yourself.

Charles,

I am shocked (and appalled). You don't bring your own food to a cafe or restaurant. Period. Especially to a coveted outdoor table.

Can I ask where you are from? I am an American and have travelled some in Europe and throughout th US. It is not an "American thing". Here or anywhere else, it is just.......not......done.

CharlesIII,

Thanks for the comment on that bit of my report you read. What Cocofromdijon did not mention was how wonderful she was in hosting our exploration of French pastries while we were in Dijon.

Without having to wade through my report, Corinne (Coco) had said she would be happy to help some of us Fodorites clear up the confusion about those lovely pastries we had all drooled over in the windows of French pastry shops. She met our party of four, and also invited a young honeymoon couple, who had rented her flat, at our hotel the morning after our arrival and then led us to two incredible pattiseries where she and the proprietors educated us in the names and differences of the fancy displays.

After we had each picked out and paid for a selection, she led us up the street to a large and busy bistro. None of us, even though we were boorish Americans, would have thought of going into an establishement and consuming food we had brought in from outside. Corinne had, however, called the owner beforehand and told him of how she was "educating" us on the wonders of French food.

When we arrived, each clutching our bulging paper bags, Coco introduced us to the owner. He was utterly charming as his staff put together a large table and brought us coffee, napkins, and utensils while we made pigs of ourselves and a mess of his restaurant. (My memory fails as to the name, but I think it was called the "Concorde" -- help me here, Coco.)

Whatever the name, you can be sure all of us would go back there tomorrow if we could. We certainly will always be grateful to our ever cheerful Cocofromdijon!

I still wouldn't try to bring outside food into any French restaurant -- without Corinne running interference.

:-)

nuke, give us the url for your report. Pictures???

Cigalechanta,

Here is the link to the first of the six reports: http://www.fodors.com/forums/threads...safe&fid=2

You could search for the other parts using the search function or my name, but the threads are WAY down on the list of messages I have posted. If you wish, I could put them all together and email them to you along with the pictures I never did get around to posting.

My email is [email protected].

:-)