“I’ve been here for 32 years… there are memories to tell!“. Sitting on one of the sixteen chairs in her bar, Hélène Masson observes the counter, the photos hanging on the wall or those that are framed. There, her husband Jojo, disappeared on December 25, 2023, here, that of “New King “, his dog, a Cavalier King Charles, again, those of his English friends who arrived one day”at 28 unexpectedly, they were all parked in rue de Laigné!“. If there are a lot of stories left, the customers are no longer there. Since December 31, Hélène has decided to retire and permanently close the doors of the “La Terrasse” barin Pontlieue, at the corner of avenue Georges Durand and rue de Laigné.
“I was born in rue Boitard nearby, I am a real Pontlieusarde and I always said when I was a kid that I would have this bar there. And I got it“, continues the new retiree. It was finally done, when she took over the establishment with Jojo in 1992. “It was a legendary place, Chinese people even came to take our photos because the 24 hours passed there in 1923. We kept long-time friends, Germans, English…“. Her husband, a painter, even took charge of creating a fresco outside in homage to the 1923 race and another inside representing their former accommodation on the edge of a pond in Pontvallain.
Steven Gouaillier
“A pang in the heart”
In the kitchen at the back, where Hélène Masson did it at the time.onion soup for football players“, the boxes are filling up little by little.”It hurts my heartshe admits, to be used to always seeing people and spending one day to the next alone with my dog…“. Although it must be recognized, customers have become rarer in recent years“there are more young people, but they don’t come to the cafe“.
Steven Gouaillier
From now on, the bar is for sale. Hélène must now move to the other side of the street. She would like future buyers to keep the idea of the bar; to preserve a piece of history first, and then to “come and drink my little coffee too“.
