Pieter Geldenhuys
Google
La Grande Georgette – Reims: A Champagne Tragedy”
You walk into La Grande Georgette in Reims with that rare sense of anticipation — the way you feel before boarding a long-awaited flight to somewhere exotic, or cracking open the first bottle from your bucket list.
The place is gorgeous. Crisp limestone walls, chic Parisian terrace chairs, and a promise of air-conditioned comfort inside. The waiter smiles, leads you through like you’re entering some private champagne temple, hands you the menu. You scan the list — a murderers’ row of bottles, from the merely expensive to the absurdly decadent. You’re already deciding how deep down the rabbit hole you’ll go. A snack, some bubbles, maybe two bottles just because you can.
And then…
Nothing.
Fifteen minutes of nothing.
Other tables are being served, glasses clinking, orders taken, plates arriving. Your table? Invisible. You could have set yourself on fire and no one would have noticed — though maybe they’d have come over to ask if you wanted ice for it.
You’re not in a bustling street market in Bangkok where chaos is part of the charm. You’re in a buttoned-up French hotel bar where the whole damn point is attentive, expert service. A waiter sits you down, hands you the keys to the champagne kingdom, and then ghosts you like a bad Tinder date.
This isn’t aloof. This isn’t “French charm.” This is contempt — casual, corrosive, business-killing contempt. It’s the kind of thing that makes you realize no matter how beautiful the décor, how legendary the wine list, how perfect the setting… if the people running the place don’t give a damn, it’s all worthless.
If I were management, I’d clear house before the rot spreads. Fire the lot of them, start over, and remember: people don’t come here for a chair and four walls. They come for an experience. They come for champagne dreams, not the cold, flat taste of being ignored.
Until then, if you want champagne in Reims, you’ll find far better places where they actually seem happy you walked in.
