Cheryl Gerber
I couldn’t believe my eyes. For the first time since I came to New Orleans for an assignment in 1991, the French Quarter was empty, a veritable ghost town.
It was a week or so after the COVID-19 lockdown, towards the end of March. Walking my dog Pearl, exercising, and cooking were so far my main coping mechanisms, the way I tried to keep anxiety at bay. So, on a gorgeous spring day—wasn’t it the most beautiful stretch of spring weather in recent memory?—I got on my bike, and rode from my home close to Bywater into the French Quarter. From North Rampart to the river, up Royal to Canal and back to Esplanade on Bourbon, I was gobsmacked. The crowds who typically fill the Quarter were out of sight, with only a few homeless souls on the street. With no traffic and all restaurants, bars, shops, and clubs closed, the only sound was birdsong, the air heavy with the scent of gardenias and jasmine.
Talk about surreal. I locked up my bike and started rambling. I looked upon St. Louis Cathedral and Jackson Square, weirdly devoid of their street buskers, artists, and mule-driven carriages, tour guides waiting patiently to clip-clop tourists around town. Street after street, details stood out, lacy wrought iron balconies and galleries, glimpses of secret courtyards, homes awash in color and lush greenery. Crooked streets, walls, and buildings. Spanish street signs. It all reminded me of the first time I saw the Quarter, how it took my breath away, like no place else I’d ever been.
The virus has hobbled our hospitality industry, a heartbreaker on so many levels. But as we slowly emerge, our city awaits.
It occurred to me that as we all seek to find opportunity, somehow, in this pandemic, the French Quarter is one place to seek solace. Was it only months ago that I was exasperated by a throng of tourists crowding the sidewalk on an evening ghost tour, forcing me to walk into the street to get around them? Well, they’re gone.
The virus has hobbled our hospitality industry, a heartbreaker on so many levels. But as we slowly emerge, our city awaits.
Now that shops, restaurants, and bars are open again in some form or another, and musicians are trying to find creative ways to perform, it’s up to us—to we locals and lovers of New Orleans living in surrounding towns and states—to rally around this amazing place. Because it will never be easier to park, to get a restaurant reservation, or to appreciate the three-hundred-year-old city’s amazing architectural details, than it is right now.
Dickie Brennan agrees. Brennan, whose family sets the highest bar for hospitality in town, has a lot of faith in the Quarter—he owns four restaurants there: Palace Café, Bourbon House, Dickie Brennan’s Steakhouse, and Tableau. “I’ve been coming to the French Quarter since I was a little kid,” he said. My dad used to bring me into Brennan’s when he worked on Sundays, and I’d run around in the courtyard, float toothpicks in the fountain. I loved it.”
His family would often make the trek from Uptown, kids packed into the station wagon, driving down Bourbon towards the French Market, where Morning Call had its original location serving beignets and café au lait. “We’d wander along the river to look at the boats. If you didn’t grow up as a kid coming to the Quarter, bring your own kids for the experience.”
[Read about what Dickie Brennan has been up to during COVID-19 quarantine, here.]
From its romantic back alleys and funky bars to the architectural elements and historic sites, the French Quarter reveals its checkerboard past, a gumbo of ethnicities and influences unlike anyplace else in America.
“The French Quarter is our home; it’s the oldest part of the city,” said Daniel Hammer, president and CEO of The Historic New Orleans Collection, an under-appreciated vault of history and culture based in its newly renovated digs at 533 Royal Street. “Our streets and building are our artifacts. They contain the stories of everything that happened here, everybody that has been here.”
“We have a national historic treasure in our own backyard—now’s the time to revisit it.”
Hammer hopes that current times will call people home to the French Quarter. “Feeling rooted is more important now than ever,” he said. HNOC’s first phase of welcoming visitors includes new interpretive displays in its spacious shady and history-filled courtyard. The Collection is also offering self-guided walking tours through its new app, French Quarter Tours, which leads one on explorations based around topics that include: Free People of Color, Music, Literature, Bourbon and Beyond, and the Slave Trade. “The historic fabric of the neighborhood is an irreplaceable storytelling tool and vital to both preserving the past and embracing what comes next,” said Hammer.
Lisa Blount gets it. Her husband’s family founded Antoine’s and she had big plans to celebrate the restaurant’s 180th birthday this year. Instead of parties and events, the company’s been making capital improvements, including installing an elevator. “But we’ve still been in the Quarter, and this is a chance to see it with fresh eyes,” she said. “We already have some private parties planned for August, and then plan to reopen all business in September.” She encourages coming in for dinner, with time spared for a stroll. “We have a national historic treasure in our own backyard—now’s the time to revisit it.”
While iconic restaurants like Antoine’s connect diners to the city’s Creole past, there are plenty of newish restaurants that explore all manner of contemporary American cuisine. Robert LeBlanc is the CEO of LeBlanc+Smith, a boutique hospitality group that includes Sylvain, Longway, Meauxbar, Cavan, and Barrel Proof. His company went from one hundred fifty to five people in March. “We aren’t really set up for takeout,” he explained. “Our business model is based on community, on a love of food and drinks, and taking care of people. We couldn’t make it work so we did the safe thing.” Like so many restaurateurs, LeBlanc hunkered down with his family while having daily Zoom calls with his team, who are ready to get back to work.
“After Katrina, we all fell back in love with New Orleans, and the world followed,” said LeBlanc, whose family roots date back to mid-18th century New Orleans. “What was different was that we were working and then going home to rebuild—we don’t have to do that this time.” Proud to live in the most European city in America, LeBlanc believes in New Orleans and in its resilience. “The French Quarter is unlike any other neighborhood. I love going to Manolito or Cane & Table for amazing cocktails. I love the galleries on Royal Street, especially Frank Relle’s amazing photography. Our restaurants have never offered a better range of cuisine. Let’s savor this time while we have it almost to ourselves.”
Like LeBlanc, Marv Ammari is finding hope in the current moment. Ammari is CEO of Creole Cuisine Restaurant Concepts, with some thirty bars and restaurants in its portfolio, a business that started with his first daiquiri shop in St. Bernard Parish in 1985. He opened his second a few years later on Decatur Street in the Quarter, with most of the company’s growth centered in the historic neighborhood, including Broussard’s, the Bombay Club, and Kingfish. Although he acknowledges that business went from $80 million to zero overnight and from fifteen hundred to thirty-eight employees, Ammari sees opportunity around every corner, with eighteen of the company’s spots reopened at press time and more on the way. He’s even planning to expand, opening at least two more restaurants in the near future. “We hope to attract the drive market, the people who already love New Orleans,” he said. “We’ve improved and invested in all of our properties during this time—we love the French Quarter and are committed to making the neighborhood better.”
Calling the pandemic a wake up call—“there was always so much business, it was easy to take it for granted”––Ammari sees the chance to reconnect with locals and dig into community as a plus. The company joined so many other New Orleans restaurants in giving back, with more than five thousand meals donated to staff and some fifteen thousand meals served at area hospitals and food banks like Second Harvest, which it will continue to partner with moving forward. Keeping prices reasonable and offering specials like Broussard’s three course $19.20 menu, a celebration of the restaurant’s 100th anniversary, is a part of the opening plan. “The French Quarter is the jewel at the heart of our business,” said Ammari.
Broussard’s chef Jimi Setchim, who led the kitchen cooking for the community while the restaurants were closed, used the unfamiliar downtime to explore the neighborhood. “I live in the Irish Channel, which is close, but working seventy hours a week doesn’t give you much downtime. My wife and I came into the Quarter so many times and just explored, little micro-vacations.”
With the Quarter’s many riches laid bare, few tourists in sight, locals can reclaim the city’s most historic neighborhood, at least for now. Hopefully we won’t have it to ourselves for too long.
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