Franckette

Franckette is a guinguette-style bar in the Visitation neighborhood, at 1 rue Gambetta in Le Mans. The venue serves indulgent aperitifs, a selection of beers and wines, and sharing boards, in a relaxed spirit that borrows the codes of the guinguette (convivial furniture, a friendly atmosphere both indoors and outdoors).

Unlike seasonal guinguettes set up by the water, Franckette is open all year, every day from 2 PM to 1 AM, and regularly hosts music events. You can reach them by phone (02 43 80 66 65) or by email.

A bit of history

Franckette has no long history as an establishment: it is a recent guinguette-style bar, run by Franck (manager), Léon (chef, also working the bar and the floor), Léonie (floor and bar) and Mehdi (kitchen), which settled in the former site of La Visitation, in the heart of Le Mans. Its history is therefore mostly that of the place that hosts it.

La Visitation was a former convent of the Visitandines, completed in 1723. The convent only functioned as such for 70 years: the French Revolution drove the nuns out in 1792, and the site then served a series of very different uses: barracks for republican soldiers during the Vendée war, a prison for those who refused to serve, a hospital, and finally a weaving workshop in the basement. The State became the owner in 1797 and installed a police station, a prison and a court there.

The courthouse moved to Place des Jacobins in 1991, but the prison remained active until all inmates were transferred to the new Coulaines penitentiary center, completed in 2010. Starting in 2011, the developers Christophe Billot and Franck Artuit (SAS Autremans) led a large redevelopment project for the site, four years of preparation before the first work began. It opened to the public on September 4, 2019, as a new complex with shops, restaurants, an art gallery (the FIAA), a performance hall (Chorus), a hotel and upscale apartments. Franckette settled in this renovated complex as one of its food and drink businesses.