Seven days a week since March 19, 1971. Janine Le Douarin went every day, with rare exceptions, to the Océan bar, Place Gambetta in Vannes. “Like Molière, I would like to end up on stage, at the Ocean,” she confided in 2021, the day of the 50th anniversary of her installation on the port of the city-prefecture. She was heard. It was in her bar-brewery-hotel that she died this Tuesday, December 24, following a fall.
Looking towards the sea
Daughter of a fisherman, Janine Le Douarin was born in Port-Blanc in Baden 81 years ago. Before settling in Vannes, she ran a tobacco bar for five years in Sainte-Anne d'Auray. When her husband, Jo, a commercial sailor, wanted to put his bag down, they looked for another business. “We liked the setting of the Ocean,” said Janine Le Douarin. For more than half a century, she has watched this magnificent setting and the city change. His establishment has also evolved: from a small bar with a few tables on the terrace, it has become a real business, a bar-brewery-restaurant employing around twenty employees. But from her beginnings, she had carefully kept a five-franc coin, given by her first customer, telling him that it would bring her luck.
The oldest merchant
“My bar l’Océan is my second family. This is where I met those who became my friends,” explained this trader, whose driving force was human contact. Rugby or football supporters, music fans for a few concerts, panorama lovers or famous personalities like Franck Dubosc, Éric Dupont-Moretti or Ségolène Royal, Janine Le Douarin assured that she did not make any distinction between her customers. She was undoubtedly the oldest Vannese merchant in the same establishment.
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