In thirty years, from the time when he “worked in stock at Rip Curl”, to today, Julien Cambriel, now at the head of the popular bar L’Île du Malt, has seen “the area evolve”. Before, Pédebert was an artisanal sector. “Then, in the early 90s, the surf brands arrived. They were essentially clearing stocks, he recalls. The area had a lot of life thanks to the fire sale that Rip Curl had initiated to cope with a difficult time.”
Launched in 1987, this sale organized around Easter by the surf industry has become over the years an unmissable event in Hossegor. “It was incredible, in the best years, over four or five days, it attracted up to 150,000 visitors,” remembers Claire Bertin-Giner, a trader in the Pédebert area for thirteen years and co-president of Apap ( Association of the Pédebert business park).
Archives Isabelle Louvier
The Pédebert clearance sale in 2018.
The sale did not survive the Covid crisis and the announcement of the definitive end of the event, in 2021, was “a hard blow for a lot of businesses”. “We had to renew ourselves,” explains Claire Bertin-Giner.
Amazing scenes
Under a new light, the Pédebert Business Park Association “developed little by little”, with “the mission of promoting the park in all its diversity, because it is truly an exceptional place. It’s true that originally, these were the factory stores and head offices of companies dedicated to board sports, but Pédebert has changed a lot. Now it’s a different face, it’s really become a place to live. We are also tending towards village communication,” continues Claire Bertin-Giner.
The credo: “You can spend the day in Pédebert, shopping, eating, doing sports, yoga, going to the hairdresser, getting a massage. There are also artists, people and entrepreneurs who have set up with modern ideas,” adds the trader.
The Pédebert area thus offers some astonishing scenes: for example, it is a place where you can eat an avocado toast while watching the efforts of athletes doing crossfit, or even enjoy a skatepark ramp in the parking lot of a store.
Cushioned shock
This conceptual side and its gentle lifestyle are seductive. “When the Boardriders group (which includes the brands Quiksilver, Roxy, Élément etc., Editor’s note) left Hossegor to go to Saint-Jean-de-Luz, we thought there would be a big void. But in fact the area has reinvented itself around the food trade and even the trade in first-class clothing and accessories. She did not lose, she rather won,” underlines Julien Cambriel, whose terrace is full at the end of the day.
To establish a regular clientele, L’Île du Malt worked on “an afterwork” with “quality products”, while keeping “democratic prices”. “We cannot play like seasonal workers, like at the beach or the city center, who play on the passage,” continues Julien Cambriel, for whom the Pédebert zone is “borderline” and has become the village of Soorts.
Isabelle Louvier/SO
Julien Cambriel (in orange), co-manager of Malt Island.
“An emulsion”
Even if the economic situation is sometimes precarious or fluctuating for certain traders, in a difficult national context, the Pédebert zone hopes to continue to do well. “Before, with the clearance sale but also the rest of the year, we had a predominantly Spanish clientele. More and more, we have a French clientele and locals,” notes Claire Bertin-Giner.
Obviously, “school holidays remain high points”, but Pédebert, which has around a hundred brands, including around thirty catering outlets, is increasingly operating year-round.
Landes: Is Hossegor still the capital of European surfing?
Deprived of a world circuit event since 2021, in competition with Portugal, the town has seen its leading position weaken in a few years. But it remains a place favored by the best surfers on the planet and the surfing industry is doing well there.
At the helm of Spot Palace, “young, gourmet and dynamic cuisine”, Max Schillé notes “an emulsion” which is “in the process of being created” with “real nocturnal activity”.
At the beginning, “when we started working, we quickly became dependent on traders. Before 10 a.m. and after 7 p.m., it was complicated. Now, with the new infrastructure, the cycle paths, we feel that a life has been established,” says the thirty-year-old, who transformed a carpenter’s shed into an atypical living space, where concerts, activities. Quite a symbol of the successful transformation by Pédebert.
