The bar on the corner had a shabby charm, its paint was peeling, and the awnings were a bit ragged. It’s really a terrace with shade, there isn’t enough space for anyone to sit inside, and all year round at lunchtime, the end of the working day, and at weekends every table was taken. It was never a restaurant, but sometimes pizzas or galettes were made, or heated, in the small kiosk at the side. I’m unsure of the arrangement as it might be seven years since I last ate a pizza, although I make myself cheese on toast, sometimes.

I’ve taken a thousand coffees and chocolats chauds at the café. The bloke who worked there from 11am to midnight almost every day, he was a bloke, un mec, he wore Christmas jumpers with zips, not just in December, would nod as I passed on my way to the supermarket, and we used the familiar tu when exchanging pleasantries. It was part of my Parisian life.

Last week it closed and seven, eight men arrived in vans and started painting things. The awnings were replaced with an ugly butter yellow set, the walls went from dull black to a mournful olive green. Most unattractive of all, grass lightshades were put in place, like so many ragged beach hats. They’re as phoney as those clothes you can buy new but already aged, and the people who wear them who say they’re ‘retro’.

The name changed from Café Montorgueil to Café Boca, and service continu was printed on the awning, Spanish mixed with French, and Coffee Mouth is an ugly name for a bar. A grill was delivered to the kiosk at the side, which became a kitchen. Two chefs squeeze into the tiny space, but I once saw the kitchen at the Fat Duck, which at the time was considered the best restaurant in the World, and the chefs there didn’t have noticeably more room to swing a spatula.

What it serves is cynically modish: cheeseburger, quinoa bowl, avocado toast, guacamole, a couple of other things that I’ve forgotten. To be fair, the burgers I’ve seen people eat look good, but other than ‘make me rich’ the menu has no philosophy, and no soul. It’s now an ersatz Magaluf beach bar, cheesy and inauthentic, out-of-place on a thriving Parisian street. It’s been busy all weekend, so maybe it’s me who’s out of step, which wouldn’t be the first time.

Of course the first morning it reopened I ordered a coffee. My pal the bloke was missing, replaced by a tubby, sweaty fellow. The new chairs were metal, hard and uncomfortable, and the coffee was bland, served in a duralex glass, and cost more than before, 5€ 50, still not the record on rue Montorgeuil, which is 6€, at the Italian place.

I sat in the still too-cool-for-June sunshine and the new manager, if that’s what he was, started talking to me. He was young, and slim, with tattoos on his arms, wearing a fresh, clean, black T. He was in no way a bloke.

He introduced me to the new owner, who could have been his sister, an attractive woman with long blond hair and a toddler. She had turned the place I took my morning coffee into another bland tourist bar, it had been de-charmed, and it didn’t have that much charm before. What could I say, but félicitations, and très joli.

My tiny part of the world has been made a tiny bit coarser. The café doesn’t matter, there are other places I can drink coffee which won’t copy it. I’m glad the owner won’t lose money, but I wish she’d chosen somewhere else to make over.

It may be surprising, considering how many times I’ve moved in the last 10 years, and moved country, at that, how even though I tell myself that change is exciting, necessary for the world to keep rotating, that, actually, I hate it. When I was young I enjoyed the thought of change, just to see what would happen. But now, if something works, why bother? I should give Café Boca time to become familiar, let it settle, in my mind, if not the street, but maybe I’m just another 65 year-old stuck in the mud.

In the primeur the other day, a thin, sallow, young woman bought a single almond. It had its velvet, pale green coat, you eat them complete, dipped in salt. The serveuse weighed it, and asked for 6₵. The woman reached into her purse and threw a couple of small, brown coins into the machine, then collected her change. She left, presumably happy with her purchase, and the serveuse and I shrugged at each other, and smiled at the quotidian insanity of the world.

The French have a complicated attitude to handling money. You usually have to put payment on a plate before it is taken, so there is always a space between you, your money, and the vendor; it’s a bit like paying ransom.

My friend François will have nothing to do with brown coins, and leaves them rather than touch them. I’m not the only one who dislikes change.