Running a vegetarian 'petit restaurant' in France can often be a challenge i.e. to entice customers through our doors.  Of course having been here in Fontevraud l'abbaye since 2006 we do have our wonderful regular customers plus we are mentioned in quite a few guides now such as Trip Adviser, The Lonely Planet, The Geo Guide and the Green Guide to the Loire Valley so many do come through our doors because of these reviews.

The biggest challenge in France is still to convince potential customers that you can have a perfectly wonderful and sustaining meal without it comprising of meat, meat and meat.  There does seem however to be some kind of zeitgeist in France at the moment in terms of healthy eating and more and more people of all nationalities who live here are making healthy decisions as to how they nourish themselves to the extent that it is now possible in most supermarkets to get hold of Soya products such as veggie mince, veggie burgers and the like.  Whilst we do like to use fresh, organic ingredients here at Chez Teresa I have recently started cooking and experimenting with Soya/Soja bean products.  I realise that there is a huge ethical debate about genetically modified soya and the pros and cons of this as a product, but we do try to use non-gm when we can obtain it.  Incidentally we had a vegetarian in the other day who said that she would never eat anything that even resembled meat so would not be partaking of a special Vegetarian sausage rolls.  I kind of get her point, but my husband Tony makes our Vegetarian sausage rolls and they are delicious!

In truth we are not fully vegetarian as in fact we do serve fish dishes such as smoked salmon at lunchtime with salads or in an omelette, and also fish pies/Parmentier and Saumon en Croute in the evenings for guests and/or for those who book in advance.  

So far this week has been the week of the Italians as we have had so many Italians in through our doors and also from Sicily.  They have all been an absolute joy and very appreciative of what we have to offer including dare I say it our pasta dishes!  They especially seemed to rank our cream teas.  Maybe there is nothing like them in Italy and Sicily.  The Sicilians that we had in for a cream tea today enjoyed it so much that they are returning at the weekend with some friends, so that is of course very encouraging.  They found us on The Lonely Planet so thanks again to that publication.  We also had a family in from Kuwait today who bought lots of pretty English and French china from our boutique. Actually one my major tips to anyone thinking of opening a small business in France is to diversify and not put all your eggs in one basket so to speak; as some weeks we sell a hell of a lot of china and then other weeks our tea room and restaurant is packed out....At other times our B & B is busy.

Sourcing vintage china is such a joy and I love to visit the Vide Greniers whereby the French empty their attics or I daresay other parts of their Maisons and sell all sorts of wonderful and less wonderful objets d'arts and an assortment of things.. selling everything and anything often including the kitchen sink!  I would also recommend visiting charity emporiums such as Emmaus as you never know what treasure you might find.