Courtepaille Brand Guidelines: The 1961 Thatched-Roof Grill on the Route Nationale 6

A thatched roof and a chimney beside the Nationale 6.

Courtepaille began in August 1961 with a single restaurant at the entrance to the village of Rouvray, in Burgundy’s Côte-d’Or, beside the Route nationale 6, the old main road from Paris to the south, French Wikipedia says. Its founder was Jean Loisier, the son of a restaurant owner, and the company behind it was registered in October of the same year, according to the same source.

Loisier wanted a building that drivers could recognise at a glance. French Wikipedia, citing Le Point, says he gave the restaurant a thatched roof and a large chimney, kept the menu short and centred on grilled meat, and called the whole thing Courtepaille. Within a year, the same source says, the number of meals served had risen twelvefold, and a second restaurant opened at Cussy-les-Forges, just over the border in the Yonne; French Wikipedia dates that restaurant to 1964.

With his wife, Arlette, Loisier built the chain to 17 restaurants and sold it in the mid-1970s to Novotel, the hotel group that later became part of Accor, which carried on opening new sites. The early restaurants were placed along holiday routes, like the first one on the Nationale 6, and the formula of a simple menu and quick service was aimed at holidaymakers, French Wikipedia says, citing Les Echos (2023).

The format was built to be repeated. French Wikipedia, citing the business magazine Capital (March 2021), describes grills that need no separate chef and are cooked in front of the diners, and dining rooms fitted out the same way in every restaurant: natural materials, a round building and the heat of a central fireplace. Guests are welcomed by a “maître de maison”, a title the company still uses on its website, where the restaurants themselves are called “Maisons”.

From Accor to a run of investment funds.

Accor eventually let the chain go. In 2000, French Wikipedia says, the fund Barclays Private Equity bought into Courtepaille through a leveraged buyout in which management held a fifth of the shares. When Barclays withdrew in 2005, management held 35 per cent, ING Parcom 35 per cent and Banque de Vizille 30 per cent, according to the same source. Early in 2011 the group passed to the investment fund Fondations Capital, and in April 2015 the lender Intermediate Capital Group (ICG) took control, French Wikipedia says, citing L’Agefi; ICG kept the restaurants under the operating company Serare.

Through those years the chain grew and changed its settings. French Wikipedia gives about 250 restaurants in France in 2011, a fifth of them franchised, and 266 in 2015. In May 2008 Courtepaille opened its first restaurant outside France, in a shopping centre in Warsaw, according to French Wikipedia, citing the franchise news site Observatoire de la Franchise. The chain also runs restaurants at motorway service areas with the catering group Elior, the same source says.

In November 2010 Capital described Courtepaille as a chain born on the main roads that was now moving into shopping centres, and noted that it, Buffalo Grill and Hippopotamus had all been bought by investment funds. The magazine reported that Courtepaille was turning its roadside restaurants into something closer to country inns: from that October the central fireplace, which serves as the grill, would be given a large hood, and the dining rooms new wooden chairs with straw seats. Its marketing director told Capital the menu was being reworked to stress a “tradition française” positioning, with a grandmother-style chocolate cake replacing the brownie.

The name has long appeared as a registered mark. Serare filed the mark “Grill Courtepaille” with France’s industrial-property office, INPI, on 30 September 1999, French Wikipedia says, citing the official trademark bulletin; the same source shows the logo registered there as the one used until 2019, when the chain adopted a new logo.

By 2018, French Wikipedia says, citing Slate, the network counted about 300 restaurants, a third of them franchised, and in mid-2020 it counted 287, of which 91 were franchised, according to the same source, citing Le Point.

Shopfronts, menus and group ownership.

Europe’s restaurant chains grew up close to home and then went abroad. The pasta, grill, buffet, pizza, tapas and burger brands in this round come from Germany, France, Spain, Finland and Sweden, and most of them present themselves first through the room: the shopfront, the sign over the door, the counter and the way a guest orders. Vapiano built its look from a long service counter, wooden tables, basket lamps and pots of herbs, and Wienerwald was known for decades for rustic dining rooms built around roast chicken.

Menus are the second layer of identity. The companies name their signature dishes on their own websites, from fresh pasta shapes to grilled chicken, pizza, small sandwiches and burgers, and they change them when they relaunch: Vapiano’s German restaurants swapped pizza for pinsa in 2021, and the new Wienerwald added bowls and vegetarian dishes after its return.

Most of these brands grow through franchising, and their corporate pages explain founders, owners and franchise networks in their own words. Restaurant and country counts change quickly, so this guide gives each one with the date and source it comes from, and separates what independent press reports from what a company says about itself.

Ownership changes are part of the story. Several chains in this group have been sold between families, investors and larger restaurant groups, and some have gone through insolvency: Wienerwald in 1982 and again in the 2000s, Vapiano in 2020. Each guide sets out those events plainly, with dates and outcomes, and says what trades under the name today.

Two court cases and a new owner.

The chain had been under strain for several years before 2020, French Wikipedia says, citing Le Point and Capital. On 21 July 2020 its managers filed for court protection at the commercial court of Évry, south of Paris, and the company entered redressement judiciaire, France’s court-supervised recovery procedure, eight days later. On 25 September 2020 the court chose its rival Buffalo Grill, owned by the investment firm TDR Capital, as the buyer, ahead of three other bidders that included Groupe Bertrand, the owner of Hippopotamus, according to French Wikipedia, citing Le Monde.

That arrangement did not last. At the end of March 2023 Courtepaille again asked to be placed in redressement judiciaire, this time before the commercial court of Nanterre, French Wikipedia says, citing Ouest-France. In June 2023 franceinfo, the public broadcaster’s news service, reported that the chain was in court-supervised recovery for the second time in three years, and that the restaurant group La Boucherie, the only bidder whose offer the court considered solid, would take over 82 of the 216 Courtepaille restaurants. Its reporter described the grill at the centre of a restaurant in Livry-Gargan, east of Paris, which closed for good on 15 June 2023.

The takeover went ahead. L’Officiel de la Franchise reported in February 2025 that in June 2023 groupe Baudaire, formerly known as La Boucherie, took over the Courtepaille brand together with a little more than a third of its restaurants: 10 company-run sites and 72 franchised ones. The magazine reported that the new owner had since launched a redesigned “Maison Courtepaille” concept, with new interior and exterior architecture, at Beaucouzé, near Angers, where the group is based.

Today the company’s website presents Courtepaille as a chain of restaurants serving “grillades à la cheminée”, meat grilled over the fireplace, under the line “Depuis 1961”. As of November 2026 it advertises more than 50 restaurants and lists dishes including entrecôte steak and andouillette de Troyes; those are the company’s own descriptions.

For a design guide, Courtepaille shows how a building can carry a brand: a thatched roof and a chimney that drivers could spot from the road, repeated from one restaurant to the next for six decades. Compare Hippopotamus, another French grill chain, and Flunch. For this guide we use ember brown, thatch straw and charcoal with a serif, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

Keep Courtepaille’s identity on hand — save it to a board in the Made Good inspiration library.