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LONG GONE CAFES
Once multipurpose shops

 

 

Five cafés in the village...

Beyond their commercial activity, cafés are also and above all meeting places, where locals can come together and talk. Two cafés were once situated in the heart of the town and three others in the Hamlet of Enfer. In the 19th century, they also served as multipurpose shops. The café “Chez Maurice” renamed “Café de la gare”, also sold charcuterie, cigarettes, dry goods groceries and wine. Closed in 1975, this establishment operated as a night club for several years. The industrial and technological developments, marked by the arrival of cars, television and supermarkets, transformed consumer habits. Little by little, cafés no longer served as places for leisure and socialising. Over 90% of these establishments disappeared over the course of a century. Most of them were turned into housing. None of them remain in Wy-dit-Joli-Village.

 

 

… the “Pétillon” tradition

This tradition consisted of hanging bouquets of evergreen foliage on the facades of cafés. The bouquets were called “pétillons”, “bouchons”, or in the local vernacular “aiguilles” after the needles on the twigs of Juniper used to decorate these bouquets in the Vexin français. Each year a festival took place where locals toured the cafés, burning last years bouquets and hanging the new ones, decorated with garlands and paper flowers, and having a drink on the house. This tradition was largely abandoned after the Second World War, but persists in a few villages in Vexin, including Gouzangrez, Théméricourt and Commeny.