La Rotonde, a café-brasserie at the Vavin crossroads since 1903

La Rotonde, a café-brasserie at the Vavin crossroads, opened in 1903 on the corner of boulevard du Montparnasse and boulevard Raspail, opposite Le Dôme. It began as a workers’ bistro, known for the slot machines around its counter, which Blaise Cendrars enjoyed.

In 1911 Victor Libion, from the Auvergne, took it over and added two neighbouring shops to make a large brasserie. With Le Dôme, Le Select and La Coupole, La Rotonde became one of the haunts of Montparnasse’s artists and writers. Simone de Beauvoir drank a crème de menthe at its zinc bar, as she recalls in Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter.

Libion sold the café in 1918. In 1924 La Rotonde took in its neighbour, the Café Le Parnasse; Gustave Kahn gave a speech at the opening, and paintings covered the walls on every floor. Fully renovated in 1958 and 1959, it gave part of its premises to a cinema that took its name.

On the odd-numbered side of the boulevard, in the 6th arrondissement, the brasserie serves from the morning coffee to a midnight seafood platter, with sole meunière, Burgundy snails and a weekday lunch menu.