Werlein's Chicken Shack

Now we know why the Palace Cafe closed down in an acrimonious dispute over the building. Apparently, there was a different buyer on the horizon. 

The landmark Canal Street building that was the longtime home of the Palace Café is set to be sold to a member of the Motwani family, but ongoing lawsuits from Dickie Brennan’s restaurant group have stalled the deal.

At issue is the historic Werlein’s Music Building, a four-story commercial property in the 600 block of Canal Street, which was constructed in the late 19th Century and was the home to Philip Werlein’s flagship music store. Dickie Brennan & Co., owned by Brennan, his sister Lauren Brennan Brower, and Steve Pettus, operated the Palace Café there from 1990 until its 35-year lease expired in June and the restaurant closed.

The French Quarter is basically Motwanivania now.  If someone complains to you that the whole thing is just daiquiri shops and tacky overpriced souvenir stores, just tell them it is because those guys own everything down there. 

Although, I probably should change the title of this post. Apparently the guy buying Werliens is a completely different Motwani from the Chicken Shack Motwanis. Still, the larger point is, if you're trying to make sense of downtown New Orleans, you need to know your Motwanis. 

New Orleans family businesses

Motwani, 46, is a property owner and businessman who operates independently from his father Kishore "Mike" Motwani and his brother Aaron Motwani, the owners of several Willie’s Chicken Shack and Praline Connection outlets on Canal Street and in the French Quarter, as well as the Sucré pastry shop on Magazine Street and other businesses.

Aaron and Mike Motwani also operate Quarter Holdings, which includes several downtown projects that are converting buildings into multi-unit short-term rental operations that will be run by Sonder.

Lenny Motwani owns dozens of companies, according to business records, including ATM machines, condominium and apartment complexes, and commercial sites leasing to Brother's Food Mart and Magnolia Enterprises convenience stores. He also owns the Blue Bayou Restaurant & Oyster Bar on Canal Street, a block away from the Palace Café.

What does it mean for the future of the now former Palace Cafe?  Well there's a legal dispute with the Brennans still to be ironed out. But assuming the Motwani deal goes through, the article suggests iSeatz  CEO Kenneth Purcell may have something to say about it.  He's rumored to be part of the deal.  Apparently he has opinions about Canal Street anyway.

Purcell said that whatever happens next with the property it will have to recognize that the types of tourists and other visitors drawn to Canal Street have changed over the years.

"I hope that area has an opportunity to shine again," Purcell said.

Unfortunately the reporter didn't ask Purcell to elaborate on that. The "types of tourists" you see downtown haven't changed a whole lot since the Palace Cafe opened in the 1990s, as far as I can tell.  

How many cops does it take to go move five barricades?

This turns out to be a very complicated question! 

Part of the problem, according to officials, is that the 1971 ordinance that created the mall does not specify which agency is in charge of blockading the streets. The ordinance only states that Royal Street is to be closed to traffic from Bienville to Orleans streets on weekdays between 11 a.m. and 4 p.m. and weekends between 11 a.m. and 7 p.m. It provides no other instructions.

At an April 25 City Council committee meeting, which coincided with the reopening of the mall, NOPD Deputy Chief Hans Ganthier said in the past his officers, musicians, and even sanitation workers took it upon themselves to erect and take down the barricades, but there was never an official policy. At the time, Ganthier was commander of the 8th District, which includes the French Quarter.

NOPD Lt. Samuel Palumbo told council members that going forward his community liaison officers would be in charge of the barricades during the week and a traffic officer from the supplemental police patrol program might move them on the weekends. Neither has happened. 

When Ellestad asked Ganthier for an update at the end of last year, he said the deputy chief sounded less willing to help than he did at the council meeting. 

Even some of us old heads might not remember all the way back to 2019. So this article helpfully reminds us that the city took advantage of the Hard Rock hotel collapse to "temporarily" shut down the pedestrian mall and kept it that way for a few years because of... something something pandemic. The reasons given for all of that were vague. Who knew the lower five blocks of Royal was such a critical artery for emergency response?  

Well now that the emergencies are over.. or at least now that they have been allowed to fade into the background with all the other noise.. the pedestrian mall was supposed to be back.  But, for some reason, nobody remembers how to move the barricades or who is supposed to move them. 

But Ellestad, who was at the managment district meeting, said the issue was not just about the city’s failure to put of barricades, but the fact that performers are harassed when they try to do it themselves. Ellestad said that often comes from a private security patrol that is managed by FQMD itself, called the Upper Quarter Patrol. 

“A lot of these problems actually come from the Upper Quarter Patrol enforcing,” Ellestad said. “The barricades aren’t there. Performers try to set up the barricades and then the private enforcement will tell them that if they move the barricades they will be in jeopardy for citation or arrest. So if FQMD is not going to be part of the process in creating a plan, is it possible then to make sure they’re not involved in the enforcement?”

The French Quarter is crawling with cops. NOPD cops, Harbor Police cops, State Police cops, the private cops who work for various businesses as well as those contracted to FQMD.  None of them can figure out how to move a barricade, although they are available to stop you from doing it. 

What we don't see addressed with much depth in this article is the matter of why this situation persists. All we are told is that Councilman King hasn't taken any action and the mayor's office didn't comment for the story. Obviously it isn't happening just by accident.

There are plenty of comments in the story from the street performers who have been affected by the mall closure but nothing from anyone who might be opposed to reopening it.  Which is strange because such comments do exist on record. Of course, it's perhaps expecting a lot of old heads to remember all the way back to 2015... even if those old heads are the very same reporter writing this week's story who also wrote this back then. 

A coalition of French Quarter businesses led by Brennan's restaurant has asked that the New Orleans Police Department permanently close the Royal Street pedestrian mall and reopen the street to vehicles during the day. The request reignites an almost 40-year-old debate over access to Royal Street and whether pedestrian-only hours hurt or help the Vieux Carre.

Brennan's general manager Christian Pendleton cited the recent terrorist attacks in San Bernadino, Calif., and Paris, as well as last month's mass shooting in Bunny Friend Park in New Orleans' 9^th Ward, in making the request.

Hey there's always an emergency somewhere that might justify the policy change you want. The Brennan's cabal had to throw a bunch of them out there before the right ones came along. Anyway let's see who else was in on that.

The letter was signed by representatives of every business in the 400 block of Royal Street, including Latrobe's, Brass Monkey Antiques, Ida Manheim & Pugh, Moss Antiques, LolaNOLA, the Martin Lawrence Gallery and James H. Cohen antique weapons and rare coins. Pendleton asked that City Hall "leave Royal Street open every day, and at all times."

You think maybe some of them are available for comment now?  Might be worth an ask.  There are some choice quotes some of them delivered the last time around.

Rosemary James, co-owner of Faulkner House Books on nearby Pirate's Alley, said the mall "should never have been enacted in the first place," that it "serves no useful purpose whatsoever," causes "terrible traffic problems" and "poses a threat to (the) safety and security of those who own property and businesses in the French Quarter and who actually pay taxes."

Yesterday, MACCNO tweeted an acknowledgement of people "working behind the scenes to find a compromise." I guess these business and property owners must be the side that is being compromised with?  Maybe someone will check back in with them to see.

Another one

Nothing to see here. Just more of the New Orleans money club passing favors around.

TMB Vieux Carre defaulted on the loan June 21, 2017, more than a month before the restaurant opened Aug. 27, according to a petition for executory process filed by Girod Loanco.

Ted Brennan's Decatur was originally financed by the failed First NBC Bank.

The restaurant was named for Ted Brennan, one of the three brothers who ran the iconic Royal Street restaurant Brennan's and father of Teddy and Bridget Brennan.

You know, there's probably a great book about New Orleans politics in the FNBC story if someone wants to start pulling threads together. 

The restaurant bubble

Looks pretty tenuous.

One of the clearest obstacles to hiring a good cook, let alone someone willing to work the kitchen these days, is that living in this country’s biggest cities is increasingly unaffordable. In New York, for instance, where a cook can expect to make between $10 and $12 per hour, and the median rent runs upward of $1,200 a month, living in the city is a near impossibility. As a result, people end up living far from the restaurants where they work. Add to that how late dinner shifts can end, causing people to arrive home well into the night.

Top it all off with the fact that culinary school graduates are often working through significant amounts of debt, and the burden can be insurmountable.

It’s not as if restaurants are cheating workers out of heaping piles of cash, either. There simply isn’t a whole lot of money circulating. The National Restaurant Association estimates that the median profit margin for mid-level establishments (those with average checks of $25 and higher) was 4.5 percent. Celebrity chefs and successful restaurateurs exist, but they are the exception. And a good deal of the money earned by the former comes in the form of television contracts, book deals, guest appearances and other tangential earnings.

Maybe basing a whole industry on labor supplied by a marginalized servant class you expect to keep motivated by the empty promise that they'll all eventually bootstrap themselves up into becoming a million Guy Fieris is not such a great idea. Especially when the rent keeps getting too damn higher. And extra especially when nobody can afford to go out to eat anymore for... some mysterious reason that certainly has nothing to do with the fact that nobody makes enough money to cover things like rent.

I'm sure some Brennan or other will tell you the problem is finding reliable workers.  Or maybe street performers.  

Quarter monopoly

NOLA.com: Napoleon House sold to Ralph Brennan

Great. Another damn Brennan-owned French Quarter establishment.  Brennan says he doesn't want to change anything. I hope that's true. Despite its obvious touristy quality, there was still a decided lack of pretentiousness about the place. (Also, Menckles and I got married there five years ago. It was by a wide margin the only affordable venue in the Quarter for losers like us to have an event like that.)

In related events, John Georges is cutting other local plutocrats in on his Galatoire's racket.

This week, that group added two high-profile members, with Louisiana
shipbuilding magnate Donald “Boysie” Bollinger and banker John C.
Simpson becoming minority owners.

John Georges, majority owner of the historic restaurant and
publisher of The Advocate, sold 10 percent of his ownership in
Galatoire’s to the two men, according to a statement from Galatoire’s
released Monday.

The 10 percent stake includes an interest in the related Galatoire’s
 Bistro in Baton Rouge and in Galatoire’s 33 Bar & Steak, located
adjacent to the original Bourbon Street restaurant, as well as “in any
future endeavors involving the Galatoire’s ownership group,” according
to the statement.

Bollinger is the chairman and chief executive officer of Bollinger
Enterprises and the former chairman and CEO of Bollinger Shipyards Inc.
Simpson is chairman of Alexandria-based Red River Bank.

Someday we'll learn who wins the big game of French Quarter Monopoly they're all playing. The winner gets to build his own Iconic hotel on the Moonwalk.

Blanche'd!

Not only is that a great name for this event, it's also a pretty good word for what happens to service industry employees who are left suddenly jobless in these situations.

As Todd Price noted today on NOLA.com, the former employees of now-closed Stella! are organizing a pop-up benefit dinner on Tuesday, July 1st at Three Muses starting at 6 p.m. The abrupt closing of Chef Scott Boswell's high-end French Quarter restaurant caught many employees by surprise, not the least of which was the kitchen staff. While a bankruptcy filing will keep Stella! employees from receiving their last paycheck for months, Blanche'd! aims help employees as they transition to find new jobs.

As Price mentions, most of the food and alcohol have been donated and Three Muses generously provided the space for free (they're normally closed on Tuesdays). Not mentioned in Price's article, however, is just how remarkable it is that the benefit is happening in the first place and how it stands in stark contrast to Boswell's abandoned efforts for a $200-per-plate fundraiser.

Former Stella! waiter Jonathan Sanders said that if it wasn't for the the fact that the kitchen and front-of-house crew were together for so long, it may have been much harder to get things organized. As it stands, things have come together well enough that there are whispers of possibly making Blanche'd! a recurring pop-up restaurant depending on the success of the first event.

On second thought, if the pop-up operation does catch on, maybe the staff won't want too much of a negative connotation attached to the name. That's okay. The Brennan's family can't seem to sort out who owns their name anymore. Maybe we can use that the next time an entire restaurant staff is suddenly Brennansed. (By the way, this benefit is happening almost one year to the day after the Brennansing of the Brennan's staff last year.)

We talk a lot about how important the tourism-related service industry is to New Orleans.  It's time we figured out how to treat our service workers better.

Brennan v Brennan ad infinitum

Good grief

A federal appeals court Thursday (Dec. 12) put Theodore "Ted" Brennan back in charge of Brennan's Incorporated. Until recently, the corporation owned the landmark Brennan's restaurant at 417-425 Royal St. Ted's brother Owen "Pip" Brennan had been the president of Brennan's Inc. since June, when he wrestled control away from Ted in a contentious stockholder vote.

Speaking of not buying that "spend more time with the family" line. 

Pip Brennan addresses his demoralized ex-employees

Actually, it's worse.

Pip’s entire July 6 statement reads:

"We did not close Brennan's restaurant. Its closure was a shock to us too. Concerned parties should call Ralph Brennan and or Terry White, the new owners of the building who are responsible for closing Brennan's restaurant, or Ted Brennan who caused the financial chaos that led to the building's sale. We had regained control of Brennan's only three weeks before the closure. Our goal is to reopen at 417 Royal Street or another location as quickly as possible and bring back all our employees."

Hey don't come to me if you want to get paid.  But, hey, can't wait to see you all at the new place!

Oh and also.

Has anyone covering this Brennan's saga bothered to ask how they went broke selling $40 eggs to throngs of people?
— BlackenedOut (@BlackenedOut) July 8, 2013

Because.. I know, right?

This will be the most complicated Krewe D'Etat float next year

I'm thinking some kind of Brennan Family tree thing.  It would involve too many word bubbles.