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Restaurants in France

Each year, more than 250,000 eating places across the country together serve some 6.3 billion meals. Nearly half are restaurants; the other half consists of a variety of establishments:

• Auberge: an inn, usually in a rural district and consequently also called auberge rural. An auberge usually serves the traditional country fare of its locality. A farmhouse inn (ferme-auberge), as those of the Gites de France establishments, often will serve local dishes based on the produce of the farm.
• Bar: as elsewhere, a bar is dedicated to serving alcoholic drink and seldom serves food other than snacks or ready-made sandwiches. A piano-bar offers entertainment; a bar americain is a cocktail bar.
• Bistro or bistrot: an in-between designation that may be anything from a simple bar or pub to a full-service restaurant.
• Brasserie: a type of bar-restaurant, so named because it originated in Alsace, famed for its breweries [brasseries]. Most brasseries serve traditional French dishes in set-price [prixfixe] menus at reasonable prices.
• Buffet or buvette: a simple serving place, such as a counter or kiosk at a railway station offering snacks, ready-made sandwiches and drinks.
• Cafe: principally a serving place for coffee [cafe] and small dishes that go with it. Once the hubs of urban social circles, traditional cafes are declining in number, in step with changing lifestyles and in face of competition from newer eating and drinking places, particularly fast-food restaurants [restaurations rapide].
• Cafe de routiers or restaurant de routiers: a transport cafe along a major road or motorway offering no-frills fare.
• Cafeteria: a self-service restaurant [restauration libre-service], often found alongside a supermarket [supermarche] or a hypermarket [hyermarche]..
• Creperie: a type of cafe specialising in crepes and other sweets.
• Pizzeria: a restaurant specialising in pizzas and other Italian dishes, usually of a brand chain, including Pasta del Arte, Pizza Pai", Pizza Hut, Pizza Pino and Vesuvio.
• Pub: a cafe decorated in English style and offering more food service than a bar.
• Restauration rapide: a fast-food outlet, usually of a brand chain. Starting with the first in 1974, there now are more than 1000 McDonalds fast-food restaurants. Other major chains are Quick with 313 restaurants, Brioche doree with 222, La Croissanterie with 104 and Relay with 97. Today, nearly one restaurant meal in seven is provided by a fast-food outlet.
• Restauration enseignement: a cafeteria or other food service in an educational institution. Together, these services provide about 1.1 billion meals a year, more than traditional restaurants that together provide 912 million meals.
• Rotisserie: a restaurant specialising in roasted and grilled meats.