[title type="h5"]
Day Twenty-Four After The Storm
Thursday, September 22, 2005[/title]
Andrea's To Reopen October 2. Yesterday afternoon I got in touch with Chef Andrea Apuzzo, who rode out the storm in an office building he owns next to his restaurant in Metairie. "I'll never do that again," he said. "It was very frightening. The building was shaking." Chef Andrea says that he had a foot and a half of water in both his restaurant and his home. When I reached him, he was busy supervising the removal of wet drywall (what a concept!). He's already pulled all the carpeting out. He was well insured, he says, and will be able to get his classic Northern Italian restaurant back open as soon as the repairs are made.
Oh, and there's one other matter. He needs to find cooks, waiters, and dishwashers. "Everybody is gone," he said. "They're all over the country. Just my sous chef and my maintenance man are here, with a few others."
Yes, indeed. Finding employees wasn't easy before the storm. It will be extraordinarily tough now that so many people are gone. There's an article to this effect in today's Times-Picayune. (I also made mention of this in our newsletter of September 3.)
Anyway, Chef Andrea says that he is serving about two hundred FEMA workers under contract every day. Many restaurants have been so employed; I heard an astronomical number of meals are coming from Chef Horst Pfiefer's Foundry catering facility. This may be what saves a lot of restaurants.
Talk Food Messageboard Returns. The food messageboard I've run for the last seven years online is back again at NewOrleans.com. It's at the same address as before, and all the old posts are there. Lots of good conversation about things like the last New Orleans meal before the storm, what to expect in the future, reports from restaurateurs, and more. You can ask and answer questions, too.
[title type="h5"]Day Twenty-Five After The Storm
Friday, September 23, 2005[/title]
Broussard's. Marc Preuss, who runs Broussard's with his parents Chef Gunter and Evelyn, has sent out the word that they hope to be operating again on Conti Street within a couple or three weeks. They had a little damage to flooring in one area, and tree in the courtyard fell. Like all other restaurants int eh area, they are having trouble tracking down all of their employees.
Most interesting to me about the Preusses' plans are that they're talking about changing the menu to something a bit less gilded than what they were known for, and perhaps opening for lunch. In other words, the restaurant will move downscale. As much as I enjoyed Broussard's as it was, I believe this is a very good plan. I expect that many restaurants will take this opportunity to respond the the adjusted needs of their customers with less ambitious, more affordable menus.
My hope is that this will turn many chefs away from the contrived, follow-the-national-trends cooking that have watered down the distinctiveness of our food in many of the cutting-edge places, and cause us to back down into the comfortable, fabulously delicious cooking that made our city famous for food to begin with.
Downscale. I have been in Washington, DC for the past two weeks, and have done a little bit of dining around. (We are on a tight budget, as you might imagine.) What has surprised me is that the menu prices here are right at the levels I'm accustomed to seeing in New Orleans. I've felt none of the sticker shock we get when we go to New York or San Francisco. That's surprising, because real estate prices here are unbelievable. Mary Ann, for whom pricing real estate is a hobby, reports that she's never seen the like of it. Our favorite sign, on a new townhouse development: "Priced Attractively from the Mid-Millions."
Upperline. JoAnn Clevenger reports that she's still out there in the hinterlands like the rest of us, but that she has been able to ascertain that her restaurant is in good shape. She says there's no reason why she will not be able to reopen as soon as the city lets restaurant employees and customers back in. She says she's contacted most of her people (those who haven't reached may do so at upperline@att.net), and hopes to be back in two weeks. Of course, all that depends on how we get through Hurricane Rita.
Trailers For Restaurant Staff. According to the Louisiana Restaurant Association's website, Senator Ken Hollis has arranged for fully-equipped trailers to be supplied for free to restaurant that need to hosue thier staffs. They have air conditioning and working kitchens (not for restaurant service, probably). This is a solution to one of the big problems: many restaurants have found their personnel, but the people have no place to live. (I hear that Antoine's, which historically has always had many employees who live in St. Bernard Parish, has a tremendous problem in this regard.) For information about the program through which the trailers are available, see the LRA's website: http://www.lra.org/.
