Paris race celebrates servers
PARIS
Usain Bolt's sprint world records were never in danger. Then again, even the world's fastest-ever human likely wouldn't have been so quick while balancing a tray with a croissant, a coffee cup and a glass of water through the streets of Paris, and without spilling it everywhere.
France's capital resurrected a 110-year-old race for its servers on March 24. The dash through central Paris celebrated the dexterous and by their own admission, sometimes famously moody men and women without whom France wouldn't be France.
They have penned songs and poems about their “bistrots,” so attached are they to their unpretentious watering holes that for generations have nourished their bodies and souls.
The resurrection of the waitering race after a 13-year hiatus is part of Paris' efforts to bask in the Olympic spotlight and put its best foot forward for its first Summer Games in 100 years.
The first waiters' race was run in 1914. This time, a couple of hundred of servers dressed up in their uniforms — with the finest sporting bow ties — and loaded up their trays with the regulation pastry, small (but empty) coffee cup and full glass of water for the 2-kilometer loop starting and finishing at City Hall.
Van Wymeersch, the runaway winner in the women's category in 14 minutes, 12 seconds, started waitering at age 16, is now 34 and said she cannot envisage any other life for herself.
Van Wymeersch works at the Le Petit Pont café and restaurant facing Notre Dame cathedral. Lamrous, who won the men's race in a time of 13:30, waits at La Contrescarpe, in Paris' 5th district. Their prizes were medals, two tickets each for the July 26 Olympic opening ceremony along the River Seine and a night out at a Paris hotel.
Although all smiles on this occasion, competitors acknowledged that's not always the case when they are rushed off their feet at work. The customer may always be right in other countries, but the server has the final word in France, feeding their reputation for being abrupt, moody and even rude at times.
The capital's mayor, Anne Hidalgo, said cafés and restaurants are “really the soul of Paris."
“The bistrot is where we go to meet people, where we go for our little coffee, our little drink, where we also go to argue, to love and embrace each other," she said. “The café and the bistrot are life.”
