In Chamboeuf, an Auvergne village of less than 1,700 inhabitants, the doors of the Ragey café remained closed for fifteen years. In August 2021, Audrey Vigouroux, 32, reopened them. In this town where her parents live, there was only one business left: a beauty salon.
In this multi-service place of 30 square meters (enhanced by an almost equally large terrace), there is of course a café, a bar, a snack service but also bread, a grocery store, local products and newspapers. . Primary objective: to put the essentials within easy reach.
Some weeks, Audrey Vigouroux organizes workshops and English lessons. Others, theme evenings, exhibitions or tastings. “I feel the enthusiasm, testifies the manager. It’s going really well and it’s very multi-generational! » Second objective: to create a link.
53% of rural municipalities without shops
Pushed by its citizens, the town hall responded to the first call for tenders at the end of 2019 for the 1,000 cafes program launched in 31,801 French municipalities with less than 3,500 inhabitants. As one of the 53% of rural towns in France that do not have a business, it is selected from the 101 selected.
It remains to find the right profile to take over the historic café. The team of 1,000 cafés and the municipality of Chamboeuf are launching a call for applications. Warned by word of mouth, Audrey Vigouroux applied in good and due form – with the help of a CV, a cover letter and a dossier to present her vision of the future location.
after three “long months”she learns that she is chosen in March 2021. Until the summer, the phases of work for the premises and training follow one another (in particular for the young woman, including an internship with ten other managers. Eight months more later, she serves her first customers.
Before, after: Café Ragey, in Chamboeuf, Loire (42), Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region.DR
Before running Café Ragey, Audrey Vigouroux led a double professional life. She is both marketing communications officer for a horse riding brand and manager of a Mc Café for the McDonald’s fast food chain for seven years. His studies ? A degree in performing arts and a master’s degree in communication.
“At 19 and 29, it was our only chance! »
Like her, most of the managers at the head of the 40 cafes currently open (and 61 in the process of opening) are women with atypical careers. Because integrating the 1,000 coffees program provides double security: logistics (the team supports the project leader before and during) and financial (each coffee has an operating budget at the start). A godsend for those who have neither bank loans nor equity.
This is the case of Emilie Havet, 29, and Cyril Mercier, ten years her junior. Together, they open in March 2022 the Moulin d’Or, a 220 square meter restaurant in Saint Biez-en-Belin (Sarthe). Trained as a cook, she has five years of experience and has worked in the dining room for more than three years. However, it is impossible to have the confidence of the banks.
On Leboncoin, without knowing the program, Emilie Havet fell last summer on the announcement of 1,000 coffees, to which she applied without hesitation. “At 19 and 29, it was our only chance to open an establishment! » Five months later, she left her CDI and moved with her companion (in life, as in work) from Beauvais (54,000 inhabitants) to the small Sarthois village of 700 souls.
The place had not been used for five years. To bring everything up to standard and make up for the lack of a multipurpose hall in the town, the local authorities are investing 400,000 euros. For its part, 1,000 cafés endows the place with an initial capital of 10,000 euros – as for all other establishments – and an envelope of 14,000 euros (equipment, decoration, operating costs, etc.).
What allow the couple to pay their first salaries, serenely. Each manager manages his own remuneration, then it is the accounting department of 1,000 cafés that publishes his payslips. “Less paperwork to do”, testify in unison the managers we interviewed.
At least 820,000 euros in two years
At the global level, it is difficult to quantify the operation. On average, for each cafe is invested 20,000 euros, at the rate of 41 cafes opened in two years, the total budget so far is at least 820,000 euros.
But, the distribution is made according to the places and the needs. “We do in lace”, repeats Sophie Le Gal, program director. In other words, tailor-made is part of the DNA of the operation – to which belongs the SOS group, whose turnover in 2020 amounted to 1.107 million euros.
Even if it means supplying a place twice if necessary. In Montreuil, a small Vendée village of 700 inhabitants, the L’Antrepuits bar-café-grocery store-relais-parcels, reopened two years ago, has already had two supplies and two managers.
The first threw in the towel after a first year of service interspersed with forced closures. A first sum of 9,800 euros was injected by 1,000 coffees, doubled by 7,800 euros for the buyer. During this time, the town hall covered the costs related to the premises.
–In Montreuil, in the Vendée, L’Antrepuits acts as a relay-parcel, local grocery and emergency store, newsstand, bar, café and cellar for the 700 inhabitants of the village.DR
A welcome help for Aurélie, the buyer, an Ex-Francilienne who left to settle after the first green confinement, in the West. The ad, which she also finds online, is “a dream”. A former hospital official, Aurélie has given herself a year to retrain, worn out by her routine in the canteen of the Cergy-Pontoise hospital, in Val d’Oise.
“My victory is when they come back! »
Six months since the reopening of the café, she confides that it has not been easy every day. For several reasons: the mayor (project leader) was elected by a narrow majority and the opening of the cafe crystallized opposition, the town of 700 inhabitants is stuck to a larger town (where there are many cafes) and some aspects of rurality can seem abrupt for a pure city dweller.
However, she was not discouraged. With her husband, she rolled up her sleeves to make the place attractive and stir up curiosity. With her big smile, and straight in her managerial boots, she sums up: “I am very happy, it was a daily fight for some to cross the threshold of my door. My victory is when they come back! »
All rent the support and accompaniment (pre and post-opening) of 1,000 cafes. In total, they are 19, including five territorial managers. Each manager benefits from personalized follow-up with one of them, depending on their location. Among the very first, Véronique Berger, 52, manager of the P’tit Saint-Pierre café with her sister in Cérelles, near Tours, says it without hesitation: “Without them, I would have shut down…”
To note
Since the end of 2021, the 1,000 cafés program has also offered a support system to support 100 independent cafés, being the last café in a municipality of less than 3,500 inhabitants. The call for applications is in progress.
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