With its balanced staircase, its painted lead mirrors and its molded ceiling, florida a proud look. Its interior decor evokes the old-fashioned charm of the “Belle Époque” years, at the turn of the 19^e and XX^e centuries, the blessed period of great coffees.

Chic place after the Great War

Unlike its “competitors” Bibent, Café Authié, Père Louis or Café de la Concordethe establishment was first run by a chocolate maker before becoming the Café Durand.

“Originally, it was the meeting place for cab drivers. They provided to eat a good hot and invigorating meal there. It was only after the Great War that the brasserie became a chic, fashionable place, like the great Parisian cafés like the Dôme or the Rotonde”.

It was during this same period of the Roaring Twenties when it was fashionable to “Americanize” the signs that the café on the Place du Capitole chose the name Florida.

It was the HQ of Jean-Marc Rouillan

In the 1930s, it hosted trade union meetings and then became one of the meeting places for Spanish refugees from the Took of (republican exile) and meetings of resistance fighters during the Second World War. “In the early 2000s, I received an old gentleman who had been arrested there to be deported to Auschwitz”, recalls with emotion Yves Benoit.

Later, in the 1970s, the Florida became the landmark of students as well as the HQ of Jean-Marc Rouillan and of his comrades of the proletarian left invested in the creation of organizations of anti-Franco armed struggle.

From a politicized place to an eclectic clientele

In the middle of the 1980s, George Benages, the owner who wishes to restore the luster of yesteryear Art Nouveau to his business, proceeds to major work.

It is to him that we owe, among other things, the return of the large glass roof. Ten years later, on the occasion of the redevelopment of the Place du Capitole (with the creation of the Occitan cross) and the creation of the frescoes of the Arcades gallery by the painter and sculptor Raymond Moretti, the brasserie experienced a new effervescence. . “The atmosphere was for a long time above all Toulouse before becoming touristy as it is today”, points out the manager.

Strong of its 400 seats (300 on the terrace and 100 inside), it has an eclectic clientele where all generations meet, every day, from 7 a.m. to 1 a.m. (while most of the other restaurants end their services in the evening at 10 p.m. or 11 p.m.).

For all hungers

From the traditional breakfast (bread, butter, jams, honey, croissant, squeezed orange, hot drinks and bacon eggs) to its specialties – cassoulet, meats (rib steak, sirloin, etc.) large mixed salads, to its delicacies – waffles, pancakes and other Philippe Faur-branded ice creams, the Florida is the ideal place for large and small appetites.

Matthew Arnal

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