The round
Four Pitches, One Van, No Surprises
Wednesday evening in the north, Friday lunch in the east, Saturday morning in the centre and, from April to October, a Sunday village to the south. The same carte goes to every pitch, cooked one at a time on two cast-iron billigs.
Wed 16:00-20:00 · Fri 11:30-14:00 · Sat 7:30-13:30 · Sun 9:00-13:00
The week
Where the Van Is, Day by Day
Butter tiles are trading days, cream ones are not. Today, where your browser allows it, wears a blue outline. The pitches are described rather than pinned: the van parks where the market puts it, so follow the queue.
Monday
Closed
The van stays parked. Gwenn, for once, does too.
Tuesday
Batter day
The week's galette batter is mixed and left to rest at least 24 hours. Enquiries wait until Wednesday as well.
Wednesday
16:00-20:00
North Rennes evening market. Supper on the way home, and on the first Wednesday of each month a new galette du mois at €10.00.
Thursday
Private events
Kept free for weddings, birthdays and village fêtes. 40 to 180 guests, within 80 km of Rennes, from €14 a head.
Book the vanFriday
11:30-14:00
East Rennes lunchtime pitch. Students and office workers, a queue that moves at about ninety galettes an hour, and a galette-saucisse at €4.50 for anyone with a short lunch.
Friday evening is kept for private events.
Saturday
7:30-13:30
The big Saturday market in the city centre. The pitch the van was built for, and the one it has missed least since a wet morning in September 2019.
Saturday from 17:00 is kept for private events. Saturday morning never is.
Sunday
9:00-13:00
A village market south of Rennes, on a four-week rotation. Ask at the hatch on Saturday which village it is this week.
April to October only. Sunday afternoons are for private events.
The carte is the same at every pitch: galettes from €4.00, crêpes from €3.00, lait ribot at €2.50. The prices and fillings are all on the carte.
Saturday, properly
The Big Market, From the Hatch
7:30-13:30 in the city centre, every Saturday the van is not on holiday. Saturday mornings belong to the market and are never available for private events.
Saturday is the reason the van exists. The big market in the city centre opens early and so do we: the hatch goes up at 7:30, and by then the van has been on the square long enough to be levelled, lit and argued with. The first galette of the morning goes straight in the bin. It is less a waste than a toll the plate charges for the day, and the reason is explained on the carte, at some length.
The second galette is almost always a galette-saucisse, €4.50, rolled around a grilled pork sausage and handed over in a paper sleeve. Before nine o'clock it outsells everything else on the carte put together. The people buying it mostly have a bag of leeks in the other hand and know exactly what they want, which suits a van with two plates very well.
Mid-morning the orders grow more ambitious: complètes at €8.50, the chèvre with honey and walnuts, the andouille for people who grew up with it. By 11:00 the queue is the longest of the week. Two billigs turn out about ninety galettes an hour and not one more, because each is cooked to order on a plate 40 cm across and nobody has found a way to hurry buckwheat. If the queue reaches the cheese stall, that is normal. If it reaches the fishmonger, come back at half past twelve.
Which is roughly when the caramel runs out. It is salted-butter caramel, made in the van on Tuesday, and there is only so much of it; once it is gone the crêpe caramel at €4.50 comes off the chalkboard until Wednesday. The chocolate sauce, also ours, usually lasts. The pan-fried apple crêpe lasts if you are lucky.
Last orders are at 13:30, give or take a galette for whoever is already standing at the hatch.
Saturday, By the Clock
- 7:30 Hatch up, first galette in the bin The plate needs one to settle. It is never sold, and nobody has ever asked for it.
- Before 9:00 Galette-saucisse hour €4.50, rolled hot, eaten standing up by people carrying leeks.
- 11:00 The longest queue of the week Two billigs, about ninety galettes an hour, every one to order.
- About 12:30 The caramel runs out Made on Tuesday, in the van. Last orders at 13:30, caramel or not.
Weather and the awning
Rain Is Fine. Ice Is Not.
This is Brittany. If the van stayed home for drizzle it would never leave the shed.
We go unless the wind is over 50 km/h. The awning is not a sail.
It is heavy canvas on four legs with a sandbag at each foot, and in a real gale it would rather be in the next commune. Below that, the van trades.
- Rain
- We trade.
- The awning keeps the hatch dry and most of the queue. A galette tastes better in drizzle; this is not science.
- Wind over 50 km/h
- We stay home.
- Judged on the square, not by a forecast for somewhere else.
- Ice on the square
- We stay home.
- Two hot plates need a level van, and a van will not stay level on ice. Neither will the queue.
- Cold, dry and bright
- The best mornings of the year.
- The billigs keep the hatch warm. Stand close.
Holidays
When the Van Is Nowhere at All
Everything above assumes it is not one of these weeks.
- Summer
- The last two weeks of August
- No markets and no events. The van stays in its shed and the plates have a rest.
- Winter
- 24 December to 10 January
- The round starts again on the first market day after the 10th, with fresh batter.
- Sundays
- April to October only
- The village rotation stops for the winter. Wednesday, Friday and Saturday carry on all year, holidays aside.
Private events keep the same calendar, so a wedding on 28 August will need another van, sadly. If you are not sure where your date falls, ask about it.