Has the Paris Wine Bar Scene Gone Dodgy?

When I first started my wine bar collection, these pete avec energie places seemed created for me. These restaurants were after my own heart, the wine came first, the food was sourced freshly, i could eat simply and drink Dard & Ribo and all on my freelancer writer income and there were always people to talk with, bonding as we did over wine talk. It was manna. A gift from the wine gods. But with buzz resulting in coverage from magazines like Food and Wine, prices rise, grit falls, the restaurant gentrifies. It is the natural cycle of life. Last night I visited Racines in the Passage des Panoramas. I always stop by to see the owner/chef/one-man band, Pierre, who I met years ago at his previous wine bar on the left bank, Caves Miard-La Cremerie. He almost threw me out of his shoe box of a place, we became friends. Things happen like that. Pierre seems to have more and more tattoos every time I see him, which flashes some color as he works with festive focus behind his stove. His rickety place that sits about 20. I was there with my friends Jeremy Meltingly gorgeous lardo and funky saucisse. It might have been one of the best food moments of the trip. (Wine? Donati Barbera and Lambrusco, etal.) And no one deserves his prices more than Pierre does as he is a brillliant sourcer-er of ingredients, works hard behind that stove himself, yet....yet...it was hard to forget "the Crisis" as they called the American Economy, was waiting for me when I returned home. Three bottles of wine later.. The next night, I traversed the Seine to La Cremerie on the left bank. This was the very places that Racine's Pierre sold to an architect who switched careers for the wine bar life. I had heard of many compatriots having passed seriously happy time of late in the 14 seat restaurant. I walked in at 8:50. There were maybe 4 people inside. He recognized me. "Alice Feiring?" "Yes," I answered. Then he said, "I close at 10:00." "That's fine," I said. "I need to get to bed early." I didn't really feel welcome. And tonight, I needed to feel welcome. I was upsold on a big enough burrata to feed the Ile de la Cité, (could not put a dent in what I found out was a 24 euro slab of delicious but huge amount of cheese). All I wanted? Vegetables. Which I ordered as well. The meal with 2 small glasses of wine (La Souteronne, old vines gamay from the ardeche. Lovely.) was 52 euro. Two weeks, working, and knowing the publishing industry is burning into ashes and have no idea what I am returning to next week, has let's say, put me on a budget of fear. I was beginning to wonder why I just didn't take myself to L'Atelier, which would have been the same price and a terrific treat instead. As a matter of fact, as I walked to the Metro I saw Le Relais, who also has our kind of wine list and a celebrated chef. I could have eaten there as well. Damn. I understand this resto business is quite difficult. Serge wants to make a living on five dinners a night and brunch on the weekend. He wants to have a lifestyle. I really didn't want that pile of burrata. I'm a creature of habit, I love to haunt, I love to hover and remember and revisit, especially when far from home, traveling alone and in need of safe shelter. So, If bar a vins aren't for 'the people,' and instead exist for those who live in the 16th and the 1st, where are the rest of us going to eat? (Update on Cremerie: A friend recently told me he went in at 6:30. Had a great time. Great food. Great wine. Perhaps he stepped out on the right foot, talking to Serge about a rare recording of Billie Holiday, in his pretty decent French. So, let's not completely take it off the list)