I have watched the New Orleans restaurant scene for many years, long enough to know how difficult it is to predict where the tastes of diners will go next. But one cut-and-dried indicator is clear: restaurants whose names include a number as a major part of their identities almost always fail to accomplish what they otherwise might have. The reason is simple: words are much easier to remember than numbers. This is because every combination of numerals is a legitimate number, and so all such collections might make a name. It's a big mistake, no matter how cool it may seem. Here is a list of some very good restaurants whose name handicapped them. I have about two or three dozen more that met a dire fate.
1. Rue 127. Mid-City: 127 N. Carrollton. . Chef-owner Ray Gruezke's well-polished cookery keeps all the forty-something tables busy. Small restaurants can get away with the number-name thing better than a big one can.
2. Eleven 79. Warehouse District: 1179 Annunciation. . Extinct. What will probably wind up being the last restaurant in owner Joe Segreto's long career of first-class service closed in April 2015. But it lasted fifteen years--more than most number-named restaurants.
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Bouillabaisse @ Ox Lot 9,[/caption]
3. Ox Lot 9. Covington: 428 E Boston St . . In the center of old Covington's blocks are open areas where farmers used to bring their cattle for sale/. Now they're parking lots, except where they've been overbuilt--as the Southern Hotel's restaurant was. Great food, cool place.
4. One Restaurant And Bar. : 8124 Hampson St. . Extinct. In a small space that had seen many restaurants come and go, One beat the number-name jinx by picking an easy number to remember. It was best known for its food bar, which turned out great eats for eight years before it threw in the towel.
5. 56 Degrees. CBD: 610 Poydras St. . Extinct. Minh Bui, owner of the excellent Cafe Minh, took over half of what had been the amazing lobby of the Whitney Bank's Poydras Street Branch. It was not especially Asian, and was named for the perfect temperature at which to store wines.
6. 201 Restaurant & Bar. French Quarter: 201 Decatur. . Extinct. The first of many restaurants in a sort-of rebuilt space at the corner of Decatur and Iberville. It was an Uptown-style bistro in a part of the French Quarter that would soon become much more civilized.
7. Cafe 615 (Da Wabbit). Gretna: 615 Kepler. . One of the great neighborhood cafes in the New Orleans area, the old name and its neon sign are permanent parts of West Bank culture. A good thing, because even if "Cafe 615" were the emphasized name, nobody would remember the number.
8. 7 on Fulton. CBD: 700 Fulton St. . In a hotel whose management shifted almost as often as the restaurant's did, this interesting modern space started with Vicky Bayley as tastemaker, which is saying something. Usually the food here was very good, but the next time you'd go everything had changed.
9. Table One. Garden District: 2800 Magazine St. . Extinct. Opening around the same time as One Restaurant, this was a very good but short-lived gourmet bistro. It was often confused with One Restaurant. The space is now Coquette.
10. Meson 923. Warehouse District: 923 S Peters. . Extinct. Opening with a brilliant chef (Chris Lynch, formerly top cook at Emeril's) and a unique service style, this place fell apart in alarmingly short order. It was great while it lasted, but a number paired with an unfamiliar foreign word alienated a lot of people.
11. 124 Restaurant. Mandeville: 124 Girod. . Extinct. In the oldest part of Mandeville, this was a very good gourmet bistro that suddenly one day became a branch of Lucy's Retired Surfer Bar.
12. 8 Block Kitchen & Bar. CBD: 601 Loyola Ave. (Hyatt Regency Hotel). . The all-day casual and breakfast restaurant of the Hyatt Regency hotel. this place handles immense crowds on Saints game days. The meaning of the name: it's eight blocks from the French Quarter. (Which begs the question, "Why not just go to the French Quarter?")
