PARIS – It was a Wednesday night following a long flight in from California. The taxi pulled up to the front door of the iconic Willi’s Wine Bar and I jumped out, eager for an evening of decompression at one of my favorite wine haunts.
As I peered inside I noticed something very strange. The bar was empty, save for the man behind the bar, Mark Williamson, aka Willi. At first I thought perhaps Willi’s was closed, but that was unlikely at 9 p.m. on a weeknight. Then I heard a din coming from the restaurant side of Willi’s.
I ventured in and greeted Mark, no doubt with a perplexed expression on my face. In the 20 years or so I’ve been making Willi’s a regular stop when I visit Paris, I had never encountered an empty bar. The attraction of Willi’s, for me at least, had always been the vibe at the bar: Complete strangers from the world over chatting away as they drank great wines by the glass and chowed down on solid bistro cuisine.
Then it dawned on me. This was my first visit since the Paris terrorist attacks.
“Tourism is down,” Williamson said. “We certainly feel it.”
I chose this night to dine in the dining room rather than the eerily silent bar. When I emerged from the dining room two hours later, the quiet scene had barely changed. One gent sat at the end of the bar nursing a glass of wine.
Williamson was philosophical. “New York came back after 911,” he said. “Paris will come back, too.”
8