In August, Paris is uncharacteristically quiet as hordes of residents scatter to the country’s beaches and coasts for a yearly month of vacation. Businesses close and the city nearly grinds to a halt. Among those who remain, there is an eternal, quintessentially Parisian quest: hunting for a balmy terrasse bathed in sunlight for an evening apéritif.

Finding the perfect seat on the pavement outside a cafe may be a matter of a chance stroll or a timely text from a friend. This summer, though, a digital solution has gained popularity in an extremely French instance of the old Apple slogan “there’s an app for that”: Jveuxdusoleil, an app that tracks the sun’s movement through the city’s maze of buildings to pinpoint exactly where you can claim a sunny spot on a terrace for your coffee. It arrives at a precarious moment for this particularly Parisian pursuit.

Jean-Charles Levenne created Jveuxdusoleil (“I want sun”) in 2020 as a side project in an effort to teach himself app development and solve a personal problem: finding shade during hot days as well as sunny spots for the Parisian ritual of post-work drinks.

Using sun-positioning algorithms and building-height data from the open-source map platform OpenStreetMap, Levenne’s app displays sunny terraces, while darkened ones disappear. Users can also request new spots through the app or note when it is not accurate (a tree casting a previously-unaccounted-for shadow, for example), making it a constantly evolving, community-driven tool. While the technology is working in other cities, most of the terraces on the app are located in Paris, where Levenne says it is particularly useful.

“This app is working worldwide but it has originally been focused on Paris because there is more need than in other French cities,” he said. “With narrow streets and tall buildings, it’s not always easy to find a sunny spot.”

Terraces function as observation posts from which to view Paris – chairs are often positioned on either side of the small bistrot tables, facing the street rather than each other and allowing diners to observe the world passing by. With France’s lack of tipping culture, there is less pressure to quickly turn over tables to make more profit. One could order a single cup of espresso for less than 2€ and stay for hours – making the terrace something of a second living room for Parisians.

Pierrick Bourgault, a photographer and journalist who has written about 20 books and released a documentary about bistro culture in France, said terraces in Paris offer one of the most authentic windows into the city.

“The terrace is emblematic of a certain art de vivre (art of living), as we say in France – a place where all kinds of people meet,” Bourgault said. “You’re not alone in an enclosed space. It’s a bit like [being in] the street, with one foot inside and one foot outside. You’re immersed in the city, and the spectacle of life.”

In search of sun after the darkest winter in decades

Jveuxdusoleil’s user base has climbed steadily in the years since its launch – with more than 1,300 active users in the week preceding my interview with Levenne, who has departed the tech world and called me from a yacht he now captains in the Balearic islands off the coast of Spain. App usage spikes in the Spring, when Parisians are desperate for sunlight after the notoriously dreary winter months.

This year, Jveuxdusoleil saw a peak of almost 20,000 visitors in just one week in early March after France experienced the darkest year in 30 years in 2024. Paris in particular endured multiple stretches of nearly a week at a time without a single ray of sunshine during the winter months. Jveuxdusoleil is entirely a passion project, and Levenne makes no profit from it. “In fact, it costs me money to host the servers,” he said.

A Paris-based photographer I spoke with, who uses the app both to find sunny streets for shooting and terraces to enjoy drinks with friends, said the uncomplicated nature of Jveuxdusoleil is part of its appeal. Its features are minimal: with just one slider that determines time and sunlight, it positions itself as a kind of anti-everything app.

Can an app revive declining terrasse culture?

While usership of Jveuxdusoleil is not necessarily widespread – many young French people I spoke with on the terraces of Paris had never heard of the app – its existence indicates a technological embrace of bistrot culture in France at a crucial time.

The number of bistrots in France has declined from 500,000 in 1900 to fewer than 40,000 today, according to an official French heritage inventory document submitted in May 2024. The document also stated that in Paris the number of bistrots has declined from 5,000-6,000 in the 1970s-80s to just over 1,000 today. A coalition of French bistrot owners successfully secured national recognition in September 2024. They have similarly been campaigning since 2018 for Unesco World Heritage status for their establishments.

Bourgault attributes this “massacre”, which has decreased the density of bistrots in France over the last century from one café per 100 inhabitants to one per 2,000, to a barrage of continuing threats. The rise of automobiles and highways has diverted traffic from such establishments across the country, while television, smartphones, and digital communication have replaced the need to meet friends at the local terrace. The report by bistrot owners likewise cites globalization and changing consumer preferences as risks to bistrot culture.

A 1941 law prohibits new café creation and only allows takeovers of existing licenses, making the number of bistrots relatively stagnant while soaring real estate prices, particularly in Paris, have made both running and patronizing these establishments less financially viable. French commentators have long lamented the “Americanisation of Paris”, with some noting that, as more traditional bistrots close, McDonalds is spreading quickly across France and becoming a de facto meeting place for many young people.

Pierrick said the rise of technology has contributed to the decline of bistrots; people can order delivery on their phones, and when they do go out they often stay glued to their devices instead of chatting with strangers at the comptoir. It’s ironic then, he noted, that an app could in fact strengthen the bistrot culture of Paris.

“With its geographical visualization, the app situates you in the concrete world – it reminds us that we’re on earth, it reminds us that there’s a sun that moves, the earth that turns,” he said.

“When we meet friends at a bistrot for a drink, we aren’t meeting in the cloud – we are meeting in a cafe with distinct personality, characters, and decor,” he added. “We know we are not two artificial intelligences [in the process] of exchanging digital protocols. We talk to each other, and without a shadow of a doubt, we know it is real.”