My experience for AF063 on August 15 was horrific. Being aware of the closure (seems definitive) of the ex-VS House operated by Plazza Premium, I reached out to my contact at AF Americas (a high ranking commercial agent).

He confirmed to me that there is no lounge option until further notice, but that eligible passengers would receive a voucher of $35 that can be used in any Terminal B shops/restaurants (pre and post security).

I was traveling with my husband and two boys (3yo and 4yo). Check-in was handled by third party staff but supervised by a local AF personnel (Cheffe d'Escale). We were given 4x vouchers of $35 each, totaling $135, so we thought we would have a decent meal at one of the two restaurants post-security (we were advised to go post-security to have the TSA experience behind us).

My AF commercial agent arranged for a personal escorting by an airport agent (I am not Ulti like Goldorak but I can tell you that it felt awesome!), and past TSA controls, we decided to have dinner at the Belgian Beers restaurant.

Big mistake.... Terminal B, just like any other restaurants in the U.S. suffers from staff shortage. There was only one woman who was overwhelmed to take care of everything in the dining room. She was very rude and said there was no space for us, despite us showing there was a table left empty after a client left, but she said no way she was going to clear and clean the table.

Our AF escorting agenr pleaded, but to no avail. We walked to the other restaurant, equally understaffed with one waiter and a waiting lane of 40min!

We finally decided to use our vouchers at the minimart, where there was only 1 cashier agent and we had to wait 25min in line to pay for our packs of chips and beverages... Didn't even use the full value of our vouchers. I kept the kids vouchers as a memorabilia in their flight log book.

We were famished when we boarded, and fortunately we were flying J and the meal was awesome.

I escalated the issue to my AF commercial agent because this was a real problem to have a proper Lounge experience nor a proper dining offering in the Terminal as an alternative due to staffing shortage issue.

He said they were taking it seriously and would look into this. My advice for travelers on the EWR-departing flight is to come as close as possible to departure, and if need to dine, do it before the security. Once past security, you will be trapped in a crowded terminal (the Frenchbee flight is departing around the same time) with understaffed commerces.