Update on NOLA restaurants (10/21/05)

[TAPrice]

For those of you who don't closely read the Times-Picayune every morning, here is a link to Brett Anderson's update on NOLA restaurants:

"If You Open, They Will Come"

[Gifted Gourmet]

Thanks for updating the news on what's happening in New Orleans with the restaurant business. The more I think about it, and since being more and more hopeful here by reading the links and Brooks' posts, I think that there must be something intrinsic to the soul of New Orleans' food that refuses to die. I am most energized by reading the articles of Brett Anderson as well. Don't they say "laissez les bontemps roulez!"?

[Gifted Gourmet]

article from online Wall Street Journal

There are still a million sad stories and a million problems and a million flies and far too much uncollected garbage on the streets here.

But here's some good news: The cooks are coming back to New Orleans.

It's lunch time at the Desire Oyster Bar on Bourbon Street ... But the place is full and the buffet choices include an exquisitely rich seafood gumbo made with shrimp and crab in a dark roux; blackened prime rib; sautéed snapper topped with a savory but not overpowering crawfish sauce; and, the city's staple, red beans and rice with smoked sausage.

"Did you cook this gumbo?" we inquire of the middle-aged woman who is ladling a refill into the gumbo container.She smiles. "No, baby," she replies, "but you come back tomorrow and try my soup." (It will turn out to be a slightly creamy Creole corn soup -- oh, man.)

Please note that the date on this article is Oct. 9 ... everything has to be updated quickly when news from New Orleans appears .. still a damned good article!

[Gifted Gourmet]

The St. John the Baptist Parish Andouille Festival is going on right now!

more photos from Nola.com

[Gifted Gourmet]

article here from Hotel-Online.com

Restaurants: 'We're taking it shift by shift' (Chicago Tribune)

Indeed, at Bacco and Red Fish Grill, two restaurants owned by the Ralph Brennan Group, the paper and plastic have been packed away. The restaurants started using their regular dishes and glassware Oct. 18.

"Hallelujah," says Ralph Brennan. "I hated those plastic dishes."

That's how progress is measured by New Orleans' restaurants. Baby steps.

"We're not taking it day by day; we're taking it shift by shift," says Charlee Williamson, the Brennan group's executive vice president. "The day the newspaper was delivered for the first time, that was a big deal. Our first UPS delivery, that was a big deal."

To be sure, some of the city's most famous restaurants are still shuttered. Commander's Palace, Brigtsen's, Emeril's, Bayona--all remain closed, and only Bayona's owner, Susan Spicer, is talking about reopening before 2006.  The biggest issue facing New Orleans restaurants is the city's incredibly shallow labor pool. 

Good article and, if you scroll down to the end, you will be able to see which restaurants are now open.

[MaxH]

For those of you who don't closely read the Times-Picayune every morning, here is a link to Brett Anderson's update on NOLA restaurants:

"If You Open, They Will Come"

Good to hear from you TAPrice! Good article, quoting Boswell, Vasquezes, others. (During the crisis the Vasquezes were helping to organize relief, and feeding people, according to the Marisol mailing list at the time.)

FYI, Fitzmorris (longtime restaurant critic in town) also has maintained an Online List of Open Restaurants since September. He mentions updating it daily, and spending much time on the phone with restaurateurs for this in recent weeks.

-- Max

[Gifted Gourmet]

As of today, Nov. 3, there are 260 restaurants open!

Restaurants continue to re-open at an agreeable pace, but one category is conspicuously still without any noteworthy players. We have no major steakhouses in our town.  Think about it. Both Ruth's Chris. Crescent City. Dickie Brennan's. Mr. John's. Charlie's. Chateaubriand. Morton's. Smith and Wollensky. All still closed. I've been in contact with most of them, and most of them say they will return. Only two are in doubt: Chateaubriand (chef-owner Gerard Crozier is consulting for Mr. Mudbug's big food operation in Hammond now) and Smith and Wollensky.

NO Menu.com

Where are the steakhouses of NO? Anyone have an opinion?

[MaxH]

Where are the steakhouses of NO? Anyone have an opinion?

Can't help with an opinion, but the same site reported (Sept. 21) Ruth’s Chris abandoning its corporate HQ site in Metairie. This has some historical significance because what became an extensive chain of properties began as Ruth Fertel’s single New Orleans restaurant (the original Chris Steak House, bought by Fertel, a divorced chemist, under stipulation to retain Chris Steak House in the name -- if I am rightly remembering the account I read 15 or so years ago).

[Mayhaw Man]

I am working, right now, on a magazine piece about some of this stuff and what I am beginning to suspect, after talking to a number of operators and their reps is this:

Some of the operators with high end, expense account dining establishments are, though they, to a man or woman, loathe to admit it, waiting around to see what happens with the convention business in New Orleans. Steak houses (with some New Orleans eccentric exception-which Ruth's on Broad might have been one were it reopening, and probably Mr John's and Charlie's-which catered primarily to locals) tend to depend of expense account dining as much as anything else and right now there isn't a whole lot of that going on. Certainly there are some examples of places that are operating in the high end that are doing well, but generally (and to be clear, I am generalizing here-totally) they are places with not so many seats that can be operated on one level or another with a reduced staff-often by the owner/chef his/herself.

I believe that I am seeing, and a number of observers at a dinner I attended last night-virtually all of whom are in or write about New Orleans food, that there is a kind of "wait and see" attitude going on with some people that is being coupled with, in many cases, a tendency to come up with excuses involving damage that may not be quite as bad as it is being described (I am only talking about the parts of town that are open-clearly many places were catastrophically damaged) as it gives them an out other than just flat out saying that they are delaying until there is a core group of customers in town to whip out their AMEX cards.

This phenomenon is not just in the Steakhouse world, as it seems to cut across many of the larger fine dining operations that would normally, on a regular preK night, be packed with people who are not locals. Obviously, places are opening up right and left, and things in the dining world are improving daily (I had a great New Orleans meal of Grav/Cheese Fries and a roast beef poboy (dressed, thanks) at Parasol last night. I can pretty much safely say that on a Thursday night on Constance St there were no tourists. They don't need them. This is exactly the kind of place that is flourishing right now. It is seriously comforting food in an atmosphere that to many of you would consider just short of unhealthy, but to us, well, it's almost as good as eating at your mama's house. Damn fine sandwich, the roast beef), but in reality, when you start driving around in the evening, you will see that there just aren't that many people around. You don't see many children at all. There are lots and lots of men here, some working from out of town and some holding down the fort while the rest of their family is somewhere else and the children are attending school.

One of the biggest, if not the biggest, problem is the labor situation. There is a huge shortage and this is being compunded by the fact that guys putting on blue roofs or picking up refrigerators off of the curbside are pulling down some real money. I have a friend who had a take home check last week of just short of 2K for nailing blue tarps on roofs. I promise you he isn't thinking about going into a kitchen and washing your dishes after you eat. Who would be? This situation will change, slowly, as some of the work that is being done slowly tapers off-but really, some of it is going to go on for at least another year. On top of this, where are the people who formally held these jobs going to live. We're not talking about people who were in the highest income brackets. Many of them lived in areas outside of the parts of New Orleans that were not flooded (though, many people don't seem to realize, that much of unflooded New Orleans in the Uptown and Carrollton areas were low income areas-this city is truly mixed, block by block, sometimes house by house, in terms of income levels) and have no home to go to. And even if they do, is it worth coming back and taking a dishwashing job while your family is somewhere like Houston, Dallas or Atlanta? Probably not. If you just want to wash dishes or fry food, you can just as well do it in those places.

There's alot to it. This whole thing is pretty much like one of those old fashioned children's toys that you whacked with a hammer. When you knock down one peg, another instantly shot up. The same thing is happening here. It's going to be a while. You know?

[bavila]

Three steps forward, two steps back, maybe? I was thinking about the kid thing the other day.

I know Tulane will help reopen Lusher Elem and Mid schools through a charter arrangement with the school system. I think that was a deal-breaker for them to get enough staff back to open the university. Hopefully that will start a chain reaction.

And I heard from a Tulane friend that she saw a sign at Popeye's "Help Wanted, $10/ hr". Hard to imagine.

Edited November 5, 2005 by bavila (log)

[Timh]

Just can't let it become a newer Vegas.I fanticise about comming back and being apart of the rebuilding of the cultural food scene.

Edited November 5, 2005 by Timh (log)

[jg70124]

A friend who just moved back to her house on Hagan told me yesterday that Elizabeth's, Crepe Nanou, and Crabby Jack's are all now open. She also said she spoke to Angel Miranda, and he plans to reopen Lola's "soon".

[Jason Perlow]

Upperline is also open, and Casamento's will be open shortly, even with the recent death of its proprietor, Joe Casamento.

[TAPrice]

Tom Fitzmorris keeps a list of open places:

Restaurant Open in New Orleans

[MaxH]

Mayhaw Man, thanks for a thoughtful report.

New Orleans has drawn tourism and related (convention, football) business for a long time, and the restaurant business there built up for that. Those of you there following 9/11 will remember the shock to the industry then, restaurant trades hurting and the governor on the radio asking residents to eat out on Wednesdays to support the industry.

[Gifted Gourmet]

Columbia Tribune article

While some news in this thread is more good than bad, there is this version of reality ...

When you knock down one peg, another instantly shot up. The same thing is happening here. It's going to be a while. You know? is Mayhaw Man's view of the current state of affairs ... which this article says, far less profoundly:

One prominent victim was Commander’s Palace in the city’s Garden District, where folks craving dishes such as fresh Gulf fish served with a potato crust in a caper beurre blanc will likely have to wait until March.Commander’s, will have to be gutted and rebuilt. "We can identify with everybody else," Dickey Brennan said. "We had little damage in some places, moderate in others and then we had complete disasters." Coolers and freezers were big problems. Filled with rotting food for days and even weeks, most were beyond saving when restaurateurs finally got back.

At Brennan’s, a wine expert is evaluating its 36,000 bottles of wine, which were left untended in soaring heat after the storm.