Waiting tables in the 10th...

Le Petit Saint Martin café-brasserie and pavement terrace in Paris’s 10th arrondissement.

Le Petit Saint Martin is one of the many neighbourhood cafés that give the streets of the 10th arrondissement around the Canal Saint-Martin their everyday character. It is the sort of place that serves breakfast, lunch, an afternoon drink and a late meal, while the pavement outside becomes part of the café from morning until evening.

Waiting tables: Paris waiters have long been part of the city’s public life. Before cafés adopted modern payment systems, a waiter was expected to keep a running total in his head for several tables at once, remember regular customers’ usual orders and navigate a busy terrace without interrupting the flow of the street, no easy task!

“A Paris terrace is never just somewhere to sit, it’s a way of observing the city at its own pace.”

Part of the “On the Terraces of Paris” series

Each Thursday we take a seat on one of Paris’s terraces, those open-air rooms where the city’s everyday life unfolds in full view.


Browse the full series 

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