The Cabanon Lozérien in Balsièges, a must for “dancing” all summer long!

Foisonnant d’idées nouvelles, Marine et Guillaume n’ont pas fini de régaler et d’amuser les Lozériens. Midi Libre – Sabrina Khenfer

Festive and relaxed, the Balsièges guinguette exudes the sweetness of life. A perfect place to go out this summer.

"Guinguette : popular bistro set up outdoors, often by the water, where people eat and dance." Ah, how sweet this word is! A little old-fashioned, a little nostalgic but above all so festive. It comes from the old French guinguer, sauter, to whom we owe today the joyful derivative guincher. As you will have understood, when Marine Pouzol and Guillaume Pons imagined their Cabanon lozérien on the banks of the Lot a year ago, the idea was not to stay bored behind their counter! He tells us about it.

Tell us about the birth of the Cabanon lozérien…

Guillaume :I am from Lozère and Marine from Clermont-Ferrand, where we met. At the time she worked at Dior in Paris and I worked in real estate. We both have business school training. I wanted to come back to Lozère, with the idea of ​​a food truck. I started with a roadside pizza truck and when Marine joined me in this project, we tried to bring it added value. We had the idea for this guinguette and we were fully supported by the Balsièges town hall. We opened on June 29, 2023.

What is the spirit that you wanted to breathe into this place ?

Marine : In a few words I would say "relaxation, good-natured and family". There is space for the little ones and at the same time a lady came to celebrate her 99th birthday. The idea is that everyone is relaxed, feels free. We sit where we want, we move the chairs, the tables. Several times it has happened that customers come with their own chairs when there was no more room! We organize concerts and we don't have many schedules: as long as people are hungry or thirsty, we serve them. It's just like us and it looks like the places we like to go with our friends.

Let's talk about the menu: what can we eat and drink ?

Pizzas, platters of cold cuts and cheese and some days spit-roasted ham. We are not catering professionals, so our added value has been to focus on the quality of the products: no frozen, no pre-cooked, only fresh and homemade. We make our own dough, we shape it, we cut it by hand, which takes us about 3 hours a day and limits us to 70 pizzas. We cut the fresh vegetables, we brown them in olive oil or on the griddle. We are in an anti-waste approach with only four pizzas of the day, which can change during the evening depending on what we have left. We are quite proud because we throw away very little.

And you consume locally…

Yes! We work with the Gaec Ressouche Le Mazet for the charcuterie and cheese; with the butcher's shop Pansier, in Mende, for the Aubrac beef; with Jean-Patrick Bonaldi, from the Auberge du Col Montmirat, for the platters and with the Gaec Durant Francis and Bastien in Les Bondons. Martine Massegin supplies us with the Lait délices de Lozère ice cream; Christine Gonella, in Monts-de-Randon and Sylvette Prieur, in Chirac, the honey. For the wine we buy from the Petit Pierre estate in the Gard, from Sophie Vitrolles, who is originally from Lanuéjols and for the beer we offer the Gorge Fraîche, an artisanal blonde from Béziers.

The success is there. What's next in the program ?

There are things that are being plotted… But for that we need the public. We are always delighted to hear constructive criticism that has allowed us to improve over the past year. 99% of customers are very cool and tell us how satisfied they are, but the comments of a small handful, who may not have understood the concept of the guinguette, can be destructive, especially on the internet. We have to think about it. We are very invested and we have lots of ideas to bring the area to life, but for that, the goodwill and support of people are essential.

Le Cabanon lozérien, rue de l’Église Saint-Martin, Balsièges. Thursday to Sunday: 12 p.m.-2 p.m. and 6 p.m.-1 a.m. Tuesday and Wednesday: 6 p.m.-1 a.m. I subscribe to read the rest