[brnt]

The reason is not the food, but the opening hours and the lack of decorum. (French places have narrow opening hours usually either 12-14 or 7-10-ish.)

"Come as you are" has been their slogan for a long time. No need to dress up, be fancy, no, just sit down whenever you need to grab a bite.

Damn, I sound like I drank the koolaid. I really only go there because I know they have coffee all day on the go and I like to be about.

[willyt]

I often get caught out by this in France because I usually eat a late lunch in the UK and France is 1 hour ahead. You are cutting it fine if you start trying to find somewhere to eat at 1:30pm and by 2pm you’ve had it, game over. Suddenly the only option is Macdonalds and you know you’ve failed when you’re eating a lukewarm burger in a slightly seedy fast food restaurant; for some reason every time I’ve ended up in a Macdonalds in France it was pretty dirty.