Nobody actually lives here

Pictured above is the Chicken Bonne Femme we had at Tujague's the night before Hurricane Nate gently dissipated somewhat near the city. At least that gave us an excuse to knock one of the "classic New Orleans restaurants" off of the bucket list.  Today it looks like the Motwanis have finally booted them out.

Tujague’s Restaurant will relocate from its longtime home at 823 Decatur St. to 429 Decatur, a few blocks upriver, owner Mark Latter confirmed.

The new address, a three-story building that dates to the 1840s, was previously home to the restaurant Bubba Gump Shrimp Co., which closed last year.

Latter intends to open Tujague’s there by August, following a renovation slated to begin soon. He plans to keep the current location open until the time of the move.

Latter says he's moving five blocks up the same street out of "economic necessity." And even though he says some things in there about the need to "change" with the times, whatever that means, the only motivating factor that makes any sense is Motwani jacked up the rent. 

Latter does not own the building Tujague’s calls home. It is owned by a company called TKM-Decatur, which is registered to Tina Motwani Narra. She is the daughter of local real estate mogul Mike Motwani, best known for his numerous T-shirt shops and frequent clashes with preservationists.

Beside that, there isn't any reason to believe moving to the upper quarter situates the restaurant any better.  But it does recall a curious event from last year when the Motwanis bought out Praline Connection and moved it from Frenchmen Street to upper Decatur saying that might make it easier for "locals" to get there? 

“Frenchmen Street has changed so much since they started there,” Motwani said. “The first thing we want to do is get back to the roots of the concept.”

Moore said he thinks relocating is a good move given the changing texture of the restaurant’s original neighborhood.

“Frenchmen Street was once filled with locals, it was actually kind of serene, but I guess someone let the cat out bag,” he said. “Locals couldn’t really get down here anymore. I think they’ll do very well where they’re going.”

Well, the locals didn't find it in the new location either. The relocated Praline Connection closed in March. 

The move does follow a similar relocation of Irene's last year from lower to upper Quarter.  But I wouldn't want to read too much of a trend into that.  Like Tujague's, they were also booted out by the landlord. In Irene's case that landlord was the Louisiana State Museum.  (I still kind of wonder if Billy Nungesser's plan to turn the building into a hotel had anything to do with that. ) In either case, there's something more than just a need to "change" going on the way Latter says. Although he does also hint that the "local" customer base in the lower Quarter is long gone.

“I grew up there. I can remember being my own son’s age, hanging out with the regulars here,” he said. “But the fact is there just aren’t that many people living in the French Quarter anymore to keep it the way people remember. If we’re going to keep this around for the next generation, I had to do this.”

Nobody actually lives there.  Nobody actually lives near the new location either, of course. Thanks to visionary decisions made by your City Council in recent years, all of downtown New Orleans is quickly being turned over to timeshare developers and massive commercial short term rental enterprises such as this Canal Street monstrosity owned the Motwanis. 

Speaking of the Motwanis, here's what they've got planned on Decatur.

Mike Motwani said he plans to seek a new tenant for the space and hopes to attract another restaurant.

“That’s the best use for it,” Motwani said. “That is a very iconic location, and we definitely want to have another restaurant in there.”

He said he is not interested in developing retail shops there. “We have so many gift shops along that street already, it would just be competition for ourselves,” he said.

Sure does feel good knowing the Monopoly Man isn't going to compete with himself. That seems very healthy.  Anyway, we look forward to the opening of the new Willie's Chicken Shack there.